


Bring the World Down

by 264feet



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Dangan Ronpa Spoilers, F/F, F/M, Mastermind AU, Mastermind Naegi, Mastermind Naegi Makoto, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/264feet/pseuds/264feet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[AU: The witnessed, yet altered, murder of Jin Kirigiri. The rather different Despair Sisters. And the fall of the boy she thought she knew, Makoto Naegi.]</p><p>"Humans…" it caught the leg of his pants and the fire roared to a new life on his body, "are animals that have things to live for." ... "When a human runs out of reasons to live, it’s time to dispose of them. Especially someone like me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First Trial

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jinjojess](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Jinjojess).



> Tumblr link: http://264feet.tumblr.com/post/64338742039/

He thrashed against the spaceship, the ropes that bound him. Kyouko Kirigiri had never seen this type of desperation in the eyes of her father, nor this type of adoration in the eyes of the boy she thought she loved.

Naegi slung an arm around her shoulder and pinched Monobear's cheek. "Isn't he precious? I think he'll make a  _beary_ good new principal!"

Kyouko refused to meet either's stare. The former principal craned his aching neck toward him. "N-naegi-kun... y-you don't have to do this. Please, I beg you to reconsider-"

"Reconsider?" 

For a moment he pretended to consider this, then picked up Monobear and made him laugh in unison with him. "Upupupu... I think you're just now picking up on how the world can spin  _without_ a few 'Super High School Level' bastards, aren'tcha?"

Jin clenched his jaw. All feeling was lost in his arms; his feet, meanwhile could only kick uselessly. The student's smile only grew.

"But it's okay! I love you as I love your daughter! I understand the hope you wanted to bring to the world. That's why I'll send you into the ultimate hope that mankind has only dreamed of: to find new worlds! And I'll usher in a golden age at Hope's Peak Academy!"

"N-NAEGI!" he shouted, "PLEASE! THEY DIDN'T MEAN IT! YOU'RE NOT WORSE THAN THE OTHER STUDENTS AT ALL!"

A twitch at the mention of 'they', at 'worse'.  _"That's because I'm a bear,"_ he giggled from hiding behind Monobear, waving its little arms as the doors began to slide shut. Kyouko's eyes snapped open again to Naegi's delight. "It's so despair-inducing that you won't remember the death of your father. But it's okay! The hope for the future outweighs the despair, Kyouko-chan, even if you won't remember me either!"

"I don't know you as it is." The bound girl clenched her teeth. Father screamed now as if begging for some-  _any_ \- way to escape. Her own voice barely projected over the beeping of the machines all working in unison. "The Naegi I knew wouldn't do this. He... he wouldn't."

The slightest flicker of doubt flashed across his face but vanished with the slam of the door. Time, it was time. Naegi placed Monobear down and strolled back to the test controls with the alarms screaming in his ear. 

His last shout came muffled through it: "K-KYOUKO!!"

Jin screamed, oh, he screamed. Naegi drank it in, dehydrated. The man was carved down to his core in these moments- he saw what really made him human. And that was a pitiful black mix of fear and despair.

"COMMENCE THE EXECUTION OF HOPE'S PEAK ACADEMY HEADMASTER!"

Another scream. He smiled. Priceless. As he wanted it.

"JIN KIRIGIRI!"

Monobear lifted his arm and slammed his gavel down on the button. All the energy in Naegi's body collected and burst like fireworks as the spaceship roared to life and shot like a bullet into the heavens. The moment he waited for arrived when Kyouko's composure shattered and she screamed also, fought at her bound wrists with her heart beating out of her chest. Even the adrenaline pumping through her wasn't enough and she craned her eyes to the stars as her father became a memory. Then the smoke overwhelmed her, burning her eyes and creeping into her lungs. She gasped for breath. 

He afforded a step forward and clutched her exposed hand. A finger traced over the burns. They'd whittle it down to a life-or-death scrap in that school. They'd show the world that these Super High School bastards were animals at their core that would kill for survival or reasons even more pitiful. 

A thousand claps of thunder sounded at once and raced towards them without subsiding; the ground tremored and like it threatened to open a fissure below; his grip on her hand increased to the point of almost snapping her fingers like she would fly away if he weren't careful. He was speaking now, saying something else, but he couldn't hear the words and neither could she. But the meaning got across.

Life flashed before him as his world went white.

Then, his world exploded. A final crunch resounded and it rang through his bones, forcing the remaining air out of him like he were a toy. His head pounded both from the noise and the collision, but most of all it overflowed with the possibilities before him like wine filled to the brim of the cup.

The door opened with a microwave's ding. The useless student, the talentless student, pulled Jin's skull from the smoldering remains. It took a second to locate Kyouko again. He spotted a speck of lavender in the ashes and held the skull in front of her. He spoke again. He could barely hear now. It was mostly the ringing.

She only shook uncontrollably, no longer crying but still making the motions. His body shook too, except with laughter that he forced through his scratchy throat, to the point it graced his ears. 

"Upupupu... _upupupupupupu!"_

_\---_

Kyouko Kirigiri was drowning, but also held under. Breath came in short bursts from the thin air before she went right back under into a sea of questions, none of which had answers. They weren't memories so much as suggestions; _something_ bad happened, something sent a chill down her spine, something left the inescapable smell of decay lingering in her dreams. The scariest part was that it wasn't a stranger.

A century passed before she clawed herself to the surface. Cold air washed over her damp face as she lifted her head from the desk. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the thick cloudiness from her throbbing head, nor the feeling that there was perpetually someone watching. If she escaped the ocean, the shores were just as deadly. 

It took another minute for the blurred chalk scrawls to form the 'Welcome' greeting on the board. Was she new here? She fished through her memories, closing her eyes once again.

Kyouko Kirigiri had entered Hope's Peak Academy.

Kyouko Kirigiri had went to see-  _some_ one. She winced at the sharp pinprick that came with trying to remember who. 

Kyouko Kirigiri had met a boy. His name was- _some_ thing. She didn't think much of him. His smile drove it all black and that wasn't a stranger either.

It still reeked of death no matter where she moved in the room or how she covered her nose. Maybe it wasn't coming from an outside source. There was no more explanation offered. No mention of if the boy was a fellow student, if she found who she was looking for. Just that stench. 

One last glance at the metal plates and she left the classroom.

Another thing that didn't surface in her memories was the solitude. There had been pushing of other students all trying to get inside at once and shouts on her back. She could still feel the sun on her face that morning, yet the empty school was still there when she opened her eyes again. 

Kirigiri almost gave a sigh of relief upon coming across another student and her curly brown locks of hair. She was staring just as shyly at a dark girl with freckles holding a body draped on her shoulder, giggling in her sleep, _"despair, despair"_. 

Twice the brunette opened her mouth as if to speak but lost the words when tears welled in her eyes. They exchanged no information otherwise. Kirigiri was just grateful that the reeking death had begun to fade.  

And while she was in thought, the rest all began staggering in. They all looked to one another in hopes one had the answer. She caught herself holding her breath each time footsteps approached and the inevitable ghost of a sigh when they rounded the corner and  _weren't_ belonging to that some _one_. 

Fourteen were around her. The fifteenth tapped her shoulder and her first thought was wondering how she missed that much blue. She was a schoolgirl, a tad shorter than her. Kirigiri caught a whiff of soap and some type of fruit shampoo. 

"Um... may I speak with you?" The other girl gave a smile of perfectly white teeth. "Everyone else is speaking and you're all alone..."

This was the type of thing that someone said to make it seem like  _you_ wanted to talk to  _them_. Not that Kirigiri minded; she was positive she'd be much more talkative if her head wasn't throbbing and the door behind them wasn't a vault's. 

"I'm fine." 

Blue-hair flinched. "O-oh! I'm sorry... I'm new here as well and I don't have anyone I know..."

_I do. He's either absent or responsible._

"I don't either."

"Is that so? Would you like to be friends?" she asked. "My name is Sayaka Maizono! I'm a Super High School Level Idol-- my dream!"

"... Kyouko Kirigiri." 

She was afraid that Maizono would ask her talent next. It all came as a blur. But rather, all she had to do was push her in the subject of her stardom and she overflowed with enthusiasm. It was a bit refreshing. 

_"Attention! At- attention! ... Eh... is this thing on?"_

Conversation stopped. The students craned their necks at the flickering screen.

_"We will now meet in the gymnasium for our new student orientation! Please assist those who might have trouble makin' it so we can all start the year off together!"_

And just as quickly, that voice died as well. A boy with a pompadour spoke the question on their minds: "The fuck does he mean, trouble making it?"

They turned one by one to the dark girl with freckles and a sleeping sister in arms. "... There is nothing to see. I'll escort her myself."

So she did. The asleep girl's blonde pigtails bounced as they went and she giggled like she knew the best secret in the world.

\---

The mastermind took a special liking to Kirigiri. When the orientation ended, they shuffled out in equal disbelief, save for her:  _"Hey!_ Can you spare your new principal a second, here?" the unpleasant voice had said. Maizono hesitated but scurried out with a flash of the toy's claws. 

They waited a while for one another to speak up first. When it became clear she wouldn't, Monoobear said, "I sure do hope you don't die."

She raised an eyebrow. "... I hope that as well."

"Such an un _bear_ ably boring way to go, ain't it? Wait around for someone to kill ya? That's why I've got a great offer for one special student...!"

Kirigiri waited. 

"Tough crowd..." Monobear looked at his feet. "Anyway! If this School Life of Mutual Killing doesn't kick off in a few days..."

And then he leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, a glint in his eye: "You kill someone."

"I refuse," she said near immediately. 

"Aww, why's that, Kyouko-chan?"

 _Why did he say-_ "Excuse me?"

He instantly realized his mistake and went on the offensive, shooting his claws out once again. "K-kirigiri-san! Listen to me, you little punk! If you don't kill someone when I tell you to, I'll... I'll kill him! I'll kill the boy y'remember with brown hair and the ahoge!"

_How did he know-_

"Scratch him! Claw him! Tear his insides and make 'em outsides! Maybe I'll bend his arms n' legs in ways they don't bend!" Monobear shouted. He whipped out a picture and waved it in her face; the same boy sat tied to a desk buried in the shadows. The only light seemed faint like from screens. "Do you get it?! You don't want him to die, do you?!"

 _No, no no no no no no no._ Every part of her body screamed no. She overflowed with questions but knew this wasn't the time to argue. 

He took her silence, her slightest external reaction, as an answer and laughed deeply. "Nyohohoho! Good! You'd better hope this kicks off within the next few days! Enjoy your school life!"

Before she could utter another word, the bear leaped back onto his pedestal and vanished. The photo lingered on the gymnasium floor and she pocketed it without a word. 

\---

"Kirigiri-san, is everything alright?" 

Maizono wasn't far away from the door. Kirigiri just nodded and kept walking, but she followed, puppylike, at her heels. "Could we maybe team up? It would be much safer that way, don't you think?"

"I prefer to work alone," Kirigiri stated on instinct. The other's face fell. "... Though I suppose our rooms are right next together. If you need anything, I may be available."

Was that a consolation? It sounded like a consolation. Sure enough, Maizono's smile came back. "Great! Ehe, and the same to you, Kirigiri-san."

And the same to her. 

Kyouko Kirigiri fell asleep that night with more questions than she could possibly answer.

\---

It seemed like an innocent question, but in retrospect, she wasn't sure if Leon Kuwata would still be alive if she said no anyway. His body was sprawled in the dormitory's hallway in an ocean of blood, mouth half-open in a cry for help that was never met. 

 _"Only a student who kills may leave."_ And yet, none of them seemed capable. Fukawa's unconscious form had to be carried back to her room. Asahina fainted. The only one who didn't flinch was black-hair-and-freckles, who had yet to introduce herself or truly communicate with anyone besides the blonde.

"Upupupupu!"

Before Kirigiri could even think on it, Monobear's unpleasant little laugh rang through the halls. "That hardly took long at all! You dumb bastards sure are desperate!" He fought for a moment to contain himself, then broke out laughing again.

"How dare you laugh at a time like this? One of our friends has been killed," Oogami growled, clenching her fists. "How can you not care?!"

"Quit talkin' to me like I'm the criminal here! It was one of _you_ fellow students that killed him, not me! I'm just here to help you group of amateurs." 

'The Monobear File', it said, with a '1' attached hopefully. When she looked up from it, he was gone.

"K-kirigiri-san..." said another voice. Maizono, in the door of her dorm. Shivering. 

 _"I- I'm so scared... c-could I sleep here tonight?"_ the question rang through her head again. Initially it was to be a swap of dorms, but Kirigiri was prepared for any betrayal and refused. Maizono didn't seem to have the awkward gait of someone with a concealed weapon, and the tears were real. There would be no turning her away completely. 

"... That's... odd..." Maizono continued. "H-how did he die...?"

 _"I- I'll sleep on this side of the bed, okay?"_ she had said. Kirigiri slept lightly in case she pulled a trick, but the other girl slept like a log. Though maybe she was right to worry; there was  _some_ commotion in the hallways she heard, but distantly. The time of death was later than when she had showed up and she stayed the entirety of the night.

No... Maizono couldn't be the killer. She could rest her mind with that, at least.

"... According to the Monobear File, it was from blood loss," she replied. Of course. It was everywhere to the point she couldn't quite cross the hall without stepping it. A thick stream dried on Kuwata's face from the source, the head wound she prodded instinctively. 

 _Trauma to the head with a blunt object,_ she thought instinctively as well,  _not very wide in diameter. Struck once._

It had to be  _something_ to draw this much blood from him. And there was that smell again- that smell of death. It was different this time. The last that lingered had an almost fuel-like stench. That and smoke. 

Her further inspection revealed an array of bruises across his body. No cuts or anything that would contribute to further blood loss. It was almost as if they were made there for fun.

"So someone has already died."

That dark girl approached again, unfazed by the death around her. A few turned to regard her. 

"Where's the blonde?" Oowada asked.

"Asleep."

She attempted to pass without further ceremony.

"Hold it!" he shouted after her. "You don't even fucking care?!"

"She hasn't even told us her name," another mused.

She paused. "... My name is Mukuro Ikusaba. I am a Super High School Level Soldier."

 _That explains the desensitization_. "And the comatose student you've been transporting?" Kirigiri asked.

"My sister."

Mukuro stayed stoic to the muffled words that were inevitably all about her. But for the most part, the crowd dispersed. Some couldn't stand the amount of blood, the sight of the body; others hunted for clues elsewhere. Maizono clung to Kirgiri's arm. 

"Your sister." The inquisitive side of her kicked in before she realized she was attempting conversation. "She seems to have been asleep for quite a long while."

"... She has," Mukuro said.

"You take quite good care of her."

"My sister... is my world. She's all I have." A hint of defensiveness crept into the soldier's tone. "I will do everything in my power to take care of her."

There wasn't much time before this 'class trial', Kirigiri knew, and it sounded fine to her even if her curious side still itched. She had just begun to search the corpse again when Maizono chimed in, "Wh-why was she asleep when we met, though?"

"It was the medici-" something seemed to click. " _Medicine_!"

And she ran. Maizono looked at Kirigiri with doe eyes. "I... think she doesn't like me."

"She just seemed rather preoccupied," she mumbled offhandedly. No murder weapon in sight, but there was a very faint smear of blood in a semicircle, no larger than a few inches. Kirigiri made a mental note and stood back to her full height. "... You said his death was just 'odd', correct?"

"H-huh?"

"Kuwata's. You said 'thats odd'."

Something emerged in Maizono and that was the most terrifying part, that it  _emerged_ as if it were present the whole time. The warmth didn't drain from her eyes so much as shatter like a mask; behind it, a fear, a primal fear like in the eyes of a rabbit that caught the gaze of a wild cat. 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Maizono stated. 

"Maizono-san... are you feeling well?"

Her eyes seemed dulled, focused on something distant. 

"... I am fine." Whatever she turned into sunk back within her, and then there was the cheery girl that Kirigiri knew. "Do you want to look around some more, Kirigiri-san?"

As a matter of fact, she did. 

Leon Kuwata’s dorm was opened. Maizono held her breath as they entered but there was no destruction or mess, save for what’s expected of a typical teenager.

Kirigiri observed his drawer was opened. In place of where Monobear’s ‘present’ would be, nothing. The other girl stayed silent up until they returned to Kirigiri’s dorm- guided largely by muscle memory-  and came up with Maizono’s.

_I could’ve sworn-_

DING DONG!

“Enough with that! I think it’s time for our first class trial! Gather around the red door, you punks!”

As a matter of fact, she almost pieced it together when Monobear's voice sang over the intercom that it was class trial time. And the whole way down the elevator, Maizono had that look again.

\---

"... Let's begin with what we know."

The evidence lined up in her mind in a row. The scene, the file, the corpse, the blood smear. No weapon. No main suspect.

"Kuwata died around 2 AM from blood loss. Someone else went out during Night Time," said Togami.

"I-it wasn't me! I bet he died because he wasn't warding off the evil spirits in the hallways like I was, 'right?" 

"I didn't go out either..." 

"You'd think he would've at least screamed. Unless..."

The crowd fell silent and, somehow, eyes fell on Kirigiri.

"... Someone prevented him from making any noise. It was right outside the dorms of Kirigiri-san and Maizono-san."

Kirigiri crossed her arms. "... You have every right to suspect me. However, I am not the culprit."

"You seem kinda suspicious..."

"You haven't even told us your Super High School Level title!"

"Isn't it fishy none of us heard him die?" Oowada concluded. Maizono looked up. 

"YOU'RE WRONG!"

The eyes all focused on her instead, her and her face of rebellion. She had her fists clenched tightly.

"I was with Kirigiri-san the entirety of Night Time and I never heard her leave!" Maizono shouted.

"Th-the entire night, Sayaka Maizono-dono?" Yamada said through a thick sweat. "Uu..."

"B-besides..." The short brunette spoke up for the first time in what seemed like ages. "... Isn't there the chance that the rooms are soundproof?" 

Mukuro leaned in with a look that brought tears to the brunette's eyes. "That's foolish."

"Upupupu..."

And then, they had to check on Monobear. He placed his hands to his mouth like a schoolboy trying to contain his giggles.

"... But 100% right!! Yer school dorms are completely soundproof for yer happiness n' convenience, punks!"

"Wh-what?"

Monobear failed at this. "Nyohohoho! You know what that means, Ikusaba-san? It's possible that nobody heard the murder but the killer and the victim!"

"... But that leaves other questions open, however." Togami put a hand to his chin. 

It began again: everyone talking almost at once. Kirigiri tried to organize the facts in her mind. 

"What was Kuwata doing out of his room at such an ungodly hour?"

"M-maybe he was going to get a snack?"

"He wasn't going in the right direction for that."

Mukuro glared. "It should be obvious. He was going to meet someone. That 'someone' killed him."

"... Which again brings us to how he died by Kirigiri's and Maizono's dorms. Or, dorm."

"... Kirigiri-san, Maizono-san." Celes looked off to the side. "Are you sure there were no disturbances in the night?"

"I- I bet the two of them did it!"

A brief pause. Yamada sweated. 

"I mean either Kyouko Kirigiri-dono or Sayaka Maizono-dono was an accomplice! It would be just like in any lilies manga!"

"Y-you've _got that wr-wrong_!" came a shaky voice. Fukawa, pointer finger trembling. "The world isn't some filthy doujin! One of them wouldn't help if they had nothing to gain!"

"... Neither of us have a reasonable motive to kill Leon Kuwata," mused Kirigiri. "Save for escape. Whoever did it hardly needed a push."

In the corner of her eye, she caught Maizono making that look again, and almost pretended not to notice. 

"U-unless it was... self-defense...?" one mumbled. 

"Then that implies Kuwata was out to kill."

"K-kuwata-kun didn't seem like a killer!" Maizono said. 

"None of us do," Togami scoffed, "but this is a game of life and death. If you don't open your eyes and notice any of us could end your life at any moment, you won't survive."

All they heard for a piercing moment was the short brunette crumbling. Kirigiri tried to piece it together again. "... The biggest issue was he hadn't a room key to enter anyone else's dorm. I doubt he was prowling for a victim at random."

"But who would he have gone to meet?"

She caught Maizono struggling for her breaths. The corner of her mouth twitched in a smile that never was on a cracking mask. 

"... Wh-why did Maizono stay with Kirigiri in the f-first place?!" Fukawa's features twisted. "Th-the cow had her own room!"

"I was afraid." The words slid out simply with the calmness of an actor who recited that line one too many times. 

"Nobody could have gotten into your room if they  _tried,_ you realize," stated Togami.

"I wanted to stay with K-kirigiri-san."

Again, the look. The twitch. Her eyes locked to her own stare. And Kirigiri took a deep breath.

"... You've got that wrong."

"Wh-what is it, Kyouko Kirigiri-dono?"

"... Maizono-san." She steadied her gaze. "... You initially asked to swap rooms with me."

The idol didn't speak.

"Is this because you were to meet with Kuwata-kun?"

A long moment passed. Then, she managed: "Q-quiet."

"Excuse me?"

"Y-you- YOU CAN'T PROVE I WANTED TO MEET WITH SOMEONE LIKE HIM!" she shouted, a wild look in her eye. 

"A-aaiiiyiah! S-sayaka Maizono-dono's personality changed!!" 

 _Or, maybe, uncovered._ "... Then what was the reason for your desire to switch rooms?"

Her pace sped. "I- I didn't like my room."

"They're the same."

"I wanted to st-stay with you!"

"But you asked to switch."

"I- I NEVER WANTED TO MEET WITH HIM!"

"That's the reasonable conclusion."

"SHUT UP! SH-SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

"Maizono-san..." A part of her cringed and yet she didn't know why it hurt. "And what could the real purpose be for wanting to be in my room?"

"I- I SAID I-"

"Perhaps, if Kuwata-kun had died there, it would appear to be my fault."

"H-hrk!"

"That explains the switch."

"Y- YOU CAN'T PROVE THAT!" Maizono screeched now, "YOU CAN'T PROVE ANY OF THAT!"

The one last thing she tried to hide snapped back in her mind.

"Someone... likely had switched the nameplates on our doors," she tried to keep a calm tone, "so Kuwata-kun would have believed... he was meeting with you."

Maizono's fingernails dug into the wooden podium in front of her. Her breathing ran ragged, more than before; her bangs drooped over her intense glare. Nobody spoke.

"... Maizono-san." She kept her words soft, gentle, even if she felt the opposite. "You betrayed my trust."

She didn't reply.

"... You told me how much it meant to you to be an idol. You couldn't pursue that dream while in this school, could you?" she asked. 

Again, silence. Kirigiri glanced at Monobear- as expected, he was bursting with delight at the situation. 

"Let us start our vote!" Ishimaru declared. "We know that Maizono-san is the culprit!"

"That is wrong."

Togami clenched his jaw tightly. "Kirigiri. Surely even an imbecile like you wouldn't go back on what she  _just proved_."

She shook her head. "... However,  _you_ are looking over the fact that Maizono-san and I were still together the entirety of Night Time. She may have had intent to murder, but never the opportunity."

"You have no other suspects, and we can't prove you're not an accomplice."

"Exactly! Maizono-san was the only one willing to commit such an act! My vote is for Sayaka Maizono-san!!"

Kirigiri bottled her growing dread. "I urge you to wait. If the wrong vote is cast, all of us die but the culprit."

"You don't have anything else," said Mukuro too quickly. "That's it."

"There still is the question of the murder weapon, which was never recovered. Beyond that, the issue of Kuwata-kun's bruised and battered state was never addressed."

Several bruises had lined his body, presumably from the same weapon. But beyond that- scratches. Scratches were all over him, deep lines of red into his sides and waist. 

"B...bruiseeedd?"

The voice didn't come from any of them; only when the half-asleep mess mumble again did it become evident. 

"H-heh heh..." She shook violently and coughed up what was, by all means, blood. "All bruised up... how despair-inducing..."

"Your sister... is she okay?"

"J-junko-chan..." her demeanor melted. " _Are_ you alright?"

"A-ah haha..." 

Junko's head shot up; she looked around with bloodshot eyes. "Just caught up in th--the fuckin' despair of the situation." Each word was forced out with great effort, like she were trying to speak over blasting music. Her features drooped. "m-mukuro... did we get the replacement part for the showe-"

"That's-" she paused, about as well-suited to  _this_ stern voice as a child in heels. "That's not important right now, Junko-chan. We're at the class trial."

"For?"

"Kuwata-kun."

She took out a small mirror and frowned at her makeup that began to smear, the bags under her eyes. Nonetheless, she took an air of superiority: "I see," she said, hanging on each syllable. "And the next dosage?"

Even Monobear watched as Mukuro's knees buckled, her skin paled. "We... have no more, Junko-chan. I'm sorry."

"H-heh..." her smile spread thin. "Th-that's fuckin' great!! You couldn't make your precious sister stay on that heinous stuff, Mukuro-nee. D-don't you hate seeing me like that??"

"I hate seeing you regardless," growled Togami. " _Thanks_ for joining us. May we resume the class trial?"

"I think something she mentioned is relevant." Kirigiri was slightly bluffing at this point, but there was little to go on- and it might explain Mukuro's defensiveness. "What was it you said about a 'replacement part'?"

She struck a cute pose. "Well, the shower in my room broke, silly~! I was saaaad, so I stayed with Mukuro-nee!"

"How would your shower 'break'?" Togami asked. 

"Oh! It's simple!" she said. The cute face dropped. "It's none of your fuckin' business, wannabe!! So it broke! What's it matter?!"

"Wannabe!?"

"What exactly had broken?" Kirigiri interjected. 

Junko's face fell. "i'm not good with all these big mean machines..."

"... It's a shower."

_She's hiding something._

"Which part needed replacing? That sounded quite specific."

"Just some dusty ol' pipe," Junko said. "Nothing  _important_."

_That's it._

"You've got that wrong."

"Wh-what?! How am I wrong about my own shower?!"

"You aren't wrong about the part which was in need of replacement," Kirigiri said, "but of its importance. I believe we still have yet to find any form of murder weapon."

The incinerator flashed in Yamada's mind. "A-and it doesn't seem likely Junko- u-um... that she managed to burn it or hide it. I looked thoroughly!"

"Yeah, we searched all over for anything that could be a murder weapon. Nothing."

"S-so she just unscrewed some pipe and beat him to death with it, 'right?"

"I'm afraid that's wrong." Celes put on her best smile. "Monobear gave presents of sewing kits to the girls and toolkits to the boys, right? Neither 'Junko-chan' nor Ikusaba-san would have access to a toolkit to unscrew a pipe like that."

"B-besides that, wouldn't just taking out a pipe get water everywhere or something?"

 _If she used the pipe, Kuwata-kun would have died in her bathroom,_ Kirigiri thought.  _However, the place where he died is most certainly the hallway._

"... The pipe never needed removal, so long as the idea were planted in her head. "Instead... say Kuwata-kun either had his toolkit on him or he went to retrieve it. The 'broken shower' could have been used to lure him in to fix it."

"What transpired that night... Kuwata-kun went to visit Maizono-san in what he believed to be her room. She did not answer. This is when she," a nod to Junko, "intervened?"

"I believe that's correct."

"N-none of that is true!" Mukuro barked, her glare burning into Kirigiri. "Don't you dare accuse my sister if you don't know who to blame!"

"After a thorough search, even in his private room, none of us have been able to find Kuwata-kun's toolkit. It can only be on one of our dorms, most likely Ikusaba-san's or-" she glanced at the yet-to-be-introduced Junko.

"Oh!" she spoke up for the first time in a few minutes, all of which were spent accusing her. "I'm Junko Enoshimaaa-san! Super High School Level Fashion Girl!"

"Enoshima-san. If you're innocent as your sister claims... if you show us your dorm, the toolkit shouldn't be there. Correct?"

All focused on her- especially Mukuro, torn between speaking and silence. And then Junko laughed. It was long, drawn out, the type reserved for someone with nothing left.

"Oh, showing you my dorm won't be necessary..." more than a hint of delight coated her voice. "I did it. I killed the baseball loser!!"

And then Kirigiri had trouble counting the shards after Mukuro's world shattered.

"J-junko-chan!" 

"Don't you ruin this for me, Mukuro!" she snapped. "Y-yeah, it's despair-filled that one sister has to watch the other die,but I've been long waiting this moment... It feels like years."

And then a silence right beofre Junko concluded: "I saw that loser and asked him to fix the shower. He brought his toolkit right over without even asking any questions, can you believe it?" Her features shifted into a cute smile. "That's when I hit him over the little ol' head with the hammer! Bam!!"

"Junko-chan, please!" Mukuro choked. "We just need to find another dose of the medicine, and-"

"What did I just say about ruining this, Mukuro?" Junko scolded, grazing her long fingernails across her sister's cheek. At the last second, she swiped and drew a thin few drops of blood. "I h-hate that fuckin' medication. It's great we couldn't find anymore."

"... Is that what you meant by 'medicine', Ikusaba-san?" Memories of the earlier investigation flashed through her mind. "You were trying to find more for your sister."

Wordlessly, Mukuro produced a bottle of medicine- now empty- from her pocket. A smear of blood adorned it. 

"You had that bloody thing the whole time?" Togami growled. "This could have been over in seconds!"

"..............................."

"Blabber, blabber, blabber! I think we got a confession, so I think it's time for our super-anticipated vote!!" Monobear bounced in his seat. "Vote by pressing the buttons in front of you, bastards!"

"Vote for me to be executed, Mukuro," Junko said, delighted. "I order you to. This will be how you finally kill me."

She was last to cast a vote. When she did, flashing lights and ringing went off like the world was beginning anew. 

"Aaaaand yer all right about this one! Like she said, Junko Enoshima-san killed Kuwata-kun!"

"But why?!" Ishimaru demanded. "Why kill a fellow classmate? What's this been about medication?"

"............................." 

Whatever Mukuro had seen in war couldn't have scared her as much as that moment, a future without a Junko to guide her and care for in return. The silence was a thousand spears in her, tearing her all at once from the inside, leaving her with nothing. Nothing. 

“Aww, looks like we aren’t gettin’ anything out of our Super High School Level Soldier... I guess that leaves it up to me!” Monobear chimed in. “This story is about these two sisters right before us. Ever since they were little...” _“I want you to kill me, Mukuro-nee!” the girl smiled. “I’ve thought so much about it... about how you would kill me. Would you do it if I told you to?”_

“Junko Enoshima-san was obsessed with death and despair. Her sister hung on her every word. She could never disobey an order from her.” _“I... I can’t do that,” the other said weakly. “I can’t go on without you.”_

“So the dusty ol’ soldier came across the biggest decision of her life: did she get her sister help, indirectly disobeyin’ her, or let her go on this road that’d lead to at least her death?”

Mukuro clenched her eyes shut tightly, as if that would stop any tears.

“Upupupu... she chose the former!! She had her sister visit all these psychiatrists, doctors, big name people that racked up a big bill! All of ‘em told her it was just about hopeless...” Monobear broke into a sweat. “Aah... but we are never without hope! She was there for her every step of the way!”

_“I d-don’t wanna take an’more,” Junko said and hiccuped. Heavily sedated, eyes unfocused, she slipped back into a perpetual dream._

_“I-I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...”_

“...Even if she thought it was selfish to disobey sis’s orders ‘cause she just wanted to keep her around an’ alive! ‘Course, all that changed when they entered our School Life of Mutual Killing...!”

He had to stop to suppress his laughter.

_“Tsk... she’s not answering.”_

_It wasn’t a planned murder. Leon Kuwata was in the wrong place at the wrong time._

_“Yoohoo! Kuwata-kun, is it?” Junko gave a big, exaggerated wave. She leaned against the doorframe for support against her slightly drunken-esque movements. “Big bad Mr Monobear gave you a toolkit for killing, didn’t he? And us ladies, a sewing kit?”_

_He was more than a little surprised to hear another voice at this hour, but relaxed. Just her. “Uh, yeah.” Leon tried to regain his composure and look cool, despite just being asked about potential murder weapons. “What about ‘em?”_

_She put on her most upset face. “Well, a little ol’ thing in m-my shower broke. I thought someone like you could come in and fix it...!”_

_On second thought, room of big-name supermodel Junko Enoshima wasn’t a bad rebound._

_“Ahah, right! I can take care of that, no problem!” he lied. How bad could it be?_

_Leon Kuwata rushed back to his room. Hammer, check. Screwdriver, check. Those were the bits that mattered. He’d figure out the rest later, he figured. Junko awaited him in the hallway._

_She staggered closer to him. “Ooh, ooh, could I take a look? I wanna see what type of stuff you got,” she said in her best little-girl voice, and then got a bit too close to him. “Please, Kuwata-kun?”_

_He chuckled nervously. “W-well, alright. Don’t see why not.”_

_He never did see it coming. Just a quick snatch of the hammer, a mad laugh that went unheard, the crack of his skull. Then it went black._

“After killing Kuwata-kun, she dropped her empty old prescription bottle an’ it rolled in the blood! Mukuro collected it up!” he announced. “And that’s the end of our story. The moral? Sometimes no matter how much you hope, it just isn’t enough! Upupupupu!”

"J-junko-chan..." Mukuro seemed so much smaller with her defenses taken down. "... If you're executed, what will I do? I- I can't go on without you... I can't..."

 _Live without you_ , the word hung in the air.  
In a strange way, Junko seemed even more delighted. "Aah... without me, you'll succumb to even worse despair... forced to watch your own sister die? Isn't that just great?"

"P-please, Junko!" And she tried, but couldn't keep the hot tears from streaming down her face. "Pl-please don't leave me! You're e-everything to me!"

"Then I order you to let me die."

"Wh-what?"

"I said let me fuckin' die!" Junko shouted. "If you love me, you'll let me die because that's what I want!"

Another moment passed. Silent, but for Mukuro trying to manage words and failing each attempt. 

Then she managed, a croak through her sobs, "Junko... Junko-chan. I- I love you... I love you s-so much..."

They hadn't seen her lose her composure- not like this. It almost seemed a first for Junko herself. Tears stained her cheeks as her reason to live began to die.

Monobear broke the following silence, "We sure have come far! It's time for our super special and anticipated punishment!"

"N-NO! PLEASE!" 

"We have an extra-special punishment for Junko Enoshima-san, our Super High School Level Fashion Girl!"

"DON'T KILL HER!" Mukuro grabbed Monobear, hands trembling. "T-take me instead! Please d-don't-"

"No violence against the principal!" Monobear instructed, writhing out her grasp. "Enough! It's punishment time!"

"NO! JUNKO-CHAN!"

And she screamed, everything crumbling around her when Monobear raised his gavel and swung at the button. 

-

The desk had straps, but Junko got on willingly. The medication affected her even now; everything came to her as if she were looking through a fishbowl. She was vaguely aware of Monobear tapping something on the board in front of her, but the words blur and melt. She was vaguely aware she was on  _something_ carrying her steadily backwards. 

She realized that she was spinning, or maybe the conveyor belt was spinning, or maybe it’s just her head spinning. Junko didn’t care. All she felt was a despair high. WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

She bounced in her seat ever-so-slightly with each crash behind her. The later ones sent a whoosh that blew her hair about, sent a chill up her spine, spread the smile on her face until it couldn’t stretch any further.

WHAM. WHAM. WHAM.

She laughed. Through it all, laughed; the girl could crane her neck just enough to see the block and her reflection in the polished metal. All of it- all of it would be painted, _painted_ , with her blood. But the kicker was that Mukuro was watching. Mukuro was sobbing.

WHAM. WHAM. Each collision truly reverberated through her body and in a moment she was flying, euphoric even if behind a thick perpetual cloud in her head from whatever Mukuro gave her. All she knew was that it lessened all her senses. But now they were at full throttle for the first time in what felt like years.

Junko Enoshima gave a peace sign as she slipped under the massive block’s shadow and knew that this was her final moment.

WHAM.

And she'd never know that, in the end, Mukuro was the only one that voted for herself rather than for her.

\---

Screens littered the walls to the point that it was the only light source in the room. Kirigiri sat across from Monobear, her arms folded defensively.

“Looks like we didn’t need ya anyway,” he said in that unpleasant voice, “someone killed before you.”

“... That is so.”

“So it’s time I held up my end of the bargain!” he chimed.

“What do you mean?” Kirigiri found herself slightly taken aback and of _course_ he noticed.

“Upupupu… I said I’d kill a certain boy if you didn’t kick off this School Life of Mutual Killing when I wanted you to, huh? I decided it would be fair to tell you all ‘bout his status now that you don’t gotta kill anymore-” he paused, smiling, “-unless you want to, of course…”

The stench came back like a sudden oncoming train. It overpowered her- death, it was undoubtedly the smell of death- but there was no visible source. Just a triggered memory.

“I know it’s overbearing, but don’t be alarmed! This isn’t him...”

Monobear passed a skull along the table. It was slightly burnt.

“... just a gift from him, Kyouko-chan.”

Her eyes flickered in recognition. When she looked back up, Monobear had vanished without taking the time to correct his mistake, or lack of.  

He could never kill the boy to begin with. No, that would be suicide.

_His name… was…_

One last scream of a familiar ‘someone’. An explosion of the air itself. A laugh.

His name was Makoto Naegi, and he murdered someone- no, no, he murdered her father. The person operating Monobear. The one that sealed them in.

His name was Makoto Naegi and he was responsible for their School Life of Mutual Killing.  Somehow, an odd part of her thought she loved him.

Slowly, very slowly, Kirigiri got up. God, her head was splitting from the inside.  Before- she knew him before. She knew them all before, and yet they introduced themselves, acted like strangers, killed without a second thought.

But she know who was at fault. Stepping back to her own dorm, the idea occurred to her: with that, she could stop him. She could free them all into the real world where they belong. But no. No. Sometimes no matter how much you hope, it just isn’t enough.

 

> You got the present, "Father's Skull"

 

 


	2. The Second Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr link: http://264feet.tumblr.com/post/69311476041

Kirigiri was watching someone die. She reached out just a hair and felt a familiar warmth drip down her gloved fingers.

_"I shouldn’t have killed him,"_  whispered a voice she couldn’t identify.

It had been some time after her third day without rest or food, leaving Kirigiri like an animal. It had been difficult to sleep with the skull staring at her, a stare that followed her if she ducked under a blanket or shoved the thing under a pile of papers and clothes. Every moment with it had whittled her into a creature of guilt and shame and confusion. 

Her father… there had been no goodbye. There had never been a goodbye. Naegi had told her that he died like a dog. That he valued the bones about as much as any other piece of compost. Meanwhile, she just couldn’t bring herself to discard it. Where could she throw it? The cafeteria was  _open_ but every scrap of food was stolen as a ‘motive’. Besides, she swore the skull had moved every time she went back to her room.

Her eyes were playing tricks on her.

_"I should have died instead."_ _  
_

The skull-shaped shadows on the wall had to be a hallucination; none of them were actually there, watching her move a corpse. She wasn’t sure if she  _killed_ , but she could piece the situation together from her remaining senses: the body’s flesh still warm against her skin, the blood so strong she could taste it. 

The next few seconds slipped into the abyss of her compromised mind, but a newfound sense of panic woke her shortly afterward.She swallowed the urge to vomit. 

Kirigiri looked around in desperation, racing through her scattered mind for any information of use, and-  _W_ _hack!_ _  
_

Her consciousness stopped all at once, like a device that had just run out of power. She mistakenly assumed the world would power down around her, too. 

—-

"… has been discovered! After a brief…"

"Kirigiri-san!!"

Hands shook her. Each movement jostled her wounded head, shooting needles down her body. 

"Kirigiri-san Kirigiri-san Kirigiri-san!"

"… period of investigation, we will begin our class trial!"

Her eyes wouldn’t open but a sound escaped her mouth and the hands relaxed. 

"Calm down. She’s alive, Maizono-san."

"Oy, we shouldn’t be letting her walk free," a deep voice said. "She tried to kill Kuwata, and now somebody else’s dead."

Another death. Something was in her grip.

"I-I was worried about Kirigiri-san!" the nearest voice said. Female. Familiar. "She looked as if she was injured too!" 

There was a sharp intake of breath. Kirigiri could picture the eyes scrutinizing her.

"With… with that head injury, I… I’m not surprised you felt that way, Maizono-san!" someone said. Female- no, male. It sounded vaguely like the brunette. Definitely female.

A different voice scoffed. Male. Also familiar. “Isn’t it obvious? Her head injury is a result of the victim trying to fight back.”

"But Ishimaru-kun wouldn’t-"

It struck her that when they said ‘someone else’, they meant Ishimaru. He had been alive and well in her mind and now suddenly that concept was torn from her, leaving a gap she didn’t know how to replace. 

Kirigiri stirred again and tried to sit up. Pain dug into her like an icepick. Blood had dried down the back of her neck, crusty and sticking to her hair.

"Kirigiri-san!" the female voice—Maizono, it was Maizono—chimed.

Kirigiri felt herself be pulled forward into a hug. She felt frailer than she remembered being, but they had all grown brittle.

"I’m so glad you’re okay!"

"As am I," said the male voice—Togami this time. "The game wouldn’t be as fun if the culprit died. … All I can say is that it took you long enough to kill another."

"Hey! Kirigiri-san isn’t the culprit!" 

"Your word is dirt." 

She heard footsteps approach, a hand snatch the  _something_ from her own. 

“Kirigiri had the knife in her hand. The only reason you’d deny her involvement would be to help your little girlfriend after your murder plot failed.”

"G-girlfriend!?"

_Murder plot…?_ _  
_

Her memory of the first trial came back in pieces. Maizono had been the one to break; the only reason she slept in her room was to try and pin a murder on her. 

That would be the logical conclusion. She didn’t care for that. Humans aren’t always logical beings, a hopeful part of her thought instead. Despite that, the rest of her realized that she was in the grip of someone who had tried to betray her.

Kirigiri shrugged Maizono off.

"Conclusions cannot be drawn before a proper investigation,” Sakura said. “We must use the time we are afforded to discover the truth behind this crime, rather than accuse our friends, even if they were… found with certain incriminating evidence." The martial artist frowned. 

The majority of the crowd dispersed, but Maizono stayed by Kirigiri’s side.

"Kirigiri-san… you’re bleeding." 

The idol drew a handful of tissues from her pocket and patted them against the wound.Most of the blood had dried in clumps. 

"Maizono-san… about all this…" 

There was a single question she wanted to ask. She needed to ask it now, before anything else happened. It felt right.

"Why?"

The world still trembledas if coated in TV static, but she could sense the frown that crossed Maizono’s face. “I know we haven’t been able to speak since the class trial. I’ve been under close watch.”

Finally, Kirigiri turned and faced Maizono. Her expression didn’t indicate bubbly hope. There was no forged smile, or anything expected of an idol. Tears streaked Maizono’s cheeks, eroding her mask in tiny rivulets.

"I wanted to kill him because… being an idol was all I had. The girls were my family and my friends. They were all I had; there was nothing to fall back on."

Kirigiri found herself listening closely, despite the way each word struck her aching mind. “You used the past tense.”

"That’s because it’s a thing of the past, Kirigiri-san. This is our reality. At first I thought, if this is it, I have nothing to live for," she said, yet managed a smile behind her tears. "But I have you."

"You have me," she repeated. It wasn’t that she didn’t  _want_ to believe Maizono; she just didn’t. The whole situation seemed underwhelming. Is this what that night together had built to? 

She wanted to ask if Maizono carried a grudge against her for proving her guilt, but her mouth wouldn’t form the words. Though it seemed the other girl understood, as she felt a gentle squeeze on her arm as response.

"I believe you’re innocent, Kirigiri-san. If- if you’d forgive me, I know we could prove it together."

A few seconds passed. Something was inside her head, scratching like a wild animal to get out. 

_Dyi_ _ng would be easy._   

Quitting would be the easy way out. She could lay back down and likely be found guilty. But no. No, that would let the others down if she  _wasn’t_ the killer. It would let Maizono down. If Kirigiri   _was_ all the idol had left, she couldn’t allow that.

She held out her hand. 

A genuine smile flashed on Maizono’s face as she pressed their palms together and helped Kirigiri to her feet. For the moment, they were okay. Kirigiri hated herself for still holding her at arm’s length, but trust was something she learned, and a voice in her head kept screaming it was some kind of trap. 

Maizono’s mask was back in place, if only as glue to keep herself from breaking again. It remained undisturbed as they began their investigation.

No blood had pooled around Ishimaru, though his chest was coated. It had been an expert stab to the heart. 

Kirigiri had a faint recollection of moving the body- no, of moving  _some_ body. She never touched Ishimaru. There was hope. 

DING DONG!

"Eh… Attention, attention! Have you punks missed me? I’ve got a lil gift for you now that someone’s dead! You might recall that the cafeteria was open, but, despair! It had no food! Well, now it’s fully stocked!"

She could practically hear the glint in his eye and waited. There was always a catch.

"But… there’s no extra time for eatin’, you bastards! Either you can stuff your faces and let your classmate die for nothin’, or you can keep going and face the trial hungry! Upupu… your choice!" 

His voice vanished as abruptly as it appeared.

"So he’s forcing us to choose between the investigation and food, after days of having starved us."

"Th-that’s not fair!" 

"I imagine that’s what Nae-" she bit her lip as soon as the name almost slipped, "the mastermind wants. To see how pathetic humans are. To see if we will abandon our friend for food."

_Now she goes,_ Kirigiri thought.  _If she doesn’t care, she’ll go for the food. Anyone would._

Maizono clenched her fists. “I’m staying with you, Kirigiri-san!”

"Then we continue," she said. "Ishimaru-kun appears to have bled extensively, but there is no blood on the floor. It’s likely this was not the scene of the murder."

"Oh. If- if he was moved, would there be a trail, or… a pool of blood somewhere else?" Maizono said. She strained to get the words out. ‘Not caring’ wasn’t an option anymore; it looked more like the idol was trying not to fall unconscious. She was trying hard, but Kirigiri didn’t know why. 

"It’s certainly possible. Let’s take a look."

Kirigiri wobbled with each step. Her legs had gone numb and her aching body was reminding her that some time spent unconscious was not ‘sleep’. It was catching up with her. Every time she saw a flicker of a shadow on the wall that didn’t seem to belong, she let her eyes flutter shut and followed her instincts.  

She had yet to figure out why _blood_ was familiar. But there it was, outside the library’s doors. There was a thick scrape in the door as well, glinting with crimson.

"You must be wondering why this is so familiar," Maizono said. 

"How would you know that?"

"I’m an Esper."

Kirigiri looked at her blankly.

"Kidding. I just have good intuition."

Her weak giggle came as a small bit of comfort, though not enough to ease the possibility she was investigating her own crime.

No. She took that back. Anything was possible; her doing this in a temporary lapse of sanity was  _probable_. She remembered the death. The corpse’s relocation. The scream…

… And the knife in her hand…

"Kirigiri-san?"

Maizono placed a hand on her shoulder. She winced and brushed it off. “I’m fine.”

"If… if you say so."

She had done it. She had played into Naegi’s trap. She had played his game, whittled herself down to a monster that would kill a friend. 

Yet even now, she couldn’t bring herself to fully hate him.

—-

"Kyouko Kirigiri must be the culprit."

The courtroom’s doors had opened, and the debate had began. All eyes were on her. 

"We found her near Ishimaru-kun and she had the knife in her hand!" 

"It’s obvious that she killed him, ‘right? I mean, there’s no one else it could be!" 

"The Monobear File says the time of death is ‘between 9 and 10’. Who else would be out then?"

"I already told you simpletons. Kirigiri came at him with a knife and stabbed him. He retaliated and struck her over the head before he died."

"You… you’re wrong!" Maizono slammed her hands on the podium. "The Monobear file says Ishimaru-kun died  _instantly!_ There has to be someone besides Kirigiri-san that hit her!”

"D-does that mean it isn’t her after all?"

"I don’t know if we can trust her w-"

"Shut up," growled Togami, "Then we simply misunderstand the order of events. The culprit attacked and Ishimaru retaliated before he was stabbed."

"But we don’t know what he hit her with," Asahina said. "We never found anything like that."

“None of you looked at all! You all wouldn’t even be accusing Kirigiri-san if you didn’t stuff your faces in the cafeteria!” Maizono leaned forward, as if the presence of others was the only thing keeping her from jumping Asahina. 

"This class trial has no room for screeching would-be murderers," Togami said, as if Maizono was an afterthought. "There is little reason to search when we already know who killed him."

"Y-yeah! And we went without food for almost three whole days!" Asahina leaned forward, eyes trained on the ‘would-be murderer’. 

Kirigiri caught Monobear delighting in the situation. 

"Were I hypothetically coming toward Ishimaru-kun with a weapon and he were to retaliate, wouldn’t he strike me on the front of my head rather than the back?" Kirigiri interjected, still feeling a tinge of pain at the base of her skull. "Assuming he died instantly, he couldn’t have waited for me to have turned around."

"This depends on the weapon the victim defended himself with."

"Ishimaru-kun was watching Maizono-san’s room after she admitted to her attempted murder…" 

She caught Maizono’s wince as well; it was a relief knowing that therewas at least some guilt there. The others kept talking.

"… so did he have a weapon on him in case she left to kill someone?"

"I don’t believe he did…"

"But if he was supposed to be watching over her room, what was he doing upstairs?"

"Maybe Kirigiri-san led him away to help Maizono-san?"

Maizono growled. “She didn’t-!”

"She has no alibi," Togami said. "Why else would Ishimaru be near the changing rooms at such a time? He was led there by the culprit."

"You’re wrong,” Kirigiri said. “There was a pool of blood outside the library doors, but none around the changing rooms. It’s likely the victim was moved after his death."

"But… why?"

"We don’t need to know why!" Maizono said. "If Ishimaru-kun was moved after his death, Kirigiri-san couldn’t have moved him! She was unconscious!"

"And if she wasn’t unconscious by that point, after his death… Someone else had to knock her out. This explains the wound on the  _back_ of her head.”

"So there-"

"Yes! There was a third party involved!"

"H-hold on!" Fukawa raised a trembling finger at Maizono. "Th-this tubster has no alibi either if her room wasn’t guarded! Who’s to say she’s not the ‘third party’?!"

"You likely don’t have an alibi either, Fukawa-san, considering how late it was," Maizono said.

_But it is possible,_ Kirigiri thought. She hoped it wasn’t. If she had placed her trust in the wrong place this time, could she ever trust someone else?

"Essentially, any of us could be this ‘third person’," someone else said.

"Feh. If I wanted to off Kirigiri, it wouldn’t have been done in such a poor manner." Togami scowled. "Incidentally, the presence of a third person on the scene doesn’t clear her of all suspicion. For all we know, they tried to stop Kirigiri from committing the crime and failed."

"Aren’t we all forgetting the most important thing about a third person?" asked Celes. 

"What?"

"If Kirigiri-san and the third person both saw Ishimaru-kun’s corpse, the body discovery announcement would have gone off, correct?"

"The Monobear File does say that Ishimaru-kun died the night before, but we discovered him this morning…"

"Then it’s possible that the culprit moved the corpse from the library doorsbefore rendering me unconscious there," Kirigiri said, her fingers on her chin. "Unfortunately, I’ve mostly lost my memory of the incident because of head trauma."

"A likely story! Maybe nobody hit her but she just fell and hit her head or somethin’, ‘right?!"

"You’ve got that wrong!" 

Togami’s frown deepened even  _further._ "What now, Maizono?"

She countered with her own frown and then relaxed. “A big cut was in the door that wasn’t there before the incident happened. Plus, there was a slight trace of blood in it.”

"Your point?"

"I think I understand," Kirigiri said after a minute. "The blood signifies that the damage occurred after the victim’s death. Maizono-san is raising the possibility that the culprit intended to kill me as well."

"Hold it. You could have left that yourself. And if someone wanted you dead, why were you only knocked unconscious?"

"I don’t understand the culprit’s reasoning, myself. Even the selection of victims seems like it was at random."

"Maizono-san’s theory is just that: a theory." Celes put on her best smile before adding: "Nothing suggests Kirigiri-san didn’t simply make that mark in the door herself…"

Kirigiri cast a glance at Monobear.  _He’s unusually silent, especially_ _during a discussion about_ _defacing school property._

"I don’t see why we don’t bring this trial to a close. Neither of those two have more than circumstantial evidence."

"W-wait! You can’t end this n-"

"Maizono-chi, you can’t let your emotions cloud the truth in front of you! She killed Ishimaru-chi and wiped the handle of the knife clean!" 

_Wait._

"That’s incorrect. You may not have paid notice, but I wear gloves," Kirigiri said. "There would be no need to wipe away fingerprints."

"No fingerprints were found because of your gloves. End of story."

"But…" Maizono was grasping for straws at this point. "The real culprit would have to clean off their fingerprints because of her gloves!"

"None of us are professionals. We can’t run fingerprint tests."

"Th-then what if something else got wiped off the knife?"

_Wait._

"Maizono-san is right," Kirigiri said. Her heart was pounding faster than she thought possible; Maizono’s ideas were nice, and she humored them because they were nice, but she still could have done it and this all could be a farce. "Maybe… maybe blood was wiped off the knife’s handle, considering my head injury drew blood. The culprit could have knocked me out using it after… failing to kill me, perhaps. A last minute decision to frame me."

Silence. Her heartbeat reverberated through her body. The seed of doubt was still blooming; if she  _had_ _murdered_  him, blaming another would get them all killed. Her fear bubbled up, about to spill.  

Then, finally, Togami shook his head. “That’s nothing but speculation. The slight amnesia is too convenient and there’s nowhere close to any proof that this ‘other culprit’ exists. At least outside the imaginations of a murderer and an attempted murderer.”

"W-wait, please…" 

All eyes turned to Chihiro-  _the brunette_ \- speaking up for the first time since the trial began. It must have been a dozen stares too many but she continued, “We still don’t know what Kirigiri-san remembers…”

"You’d believe her word?"

"I-if we vote wrong, we all die…"

"We have to listen to Kirigiri-san! We have to so we can prove she’s innocent!"

"Thank you Maizono-san, but…"

It was funny. Here she was, thinking she had control over her emotions. She thought herself stoic. Calm. But now she had her jaw clenched and her fists balled in some last-ditch effort to hold back tears.

_Emotions are what make us all human…_

"That latter part won’t be necessary. This whole time… this whole time, I’ve struggled with the idea that perhaps I am the culprit, due to the fogginess of my memories."

"K-KIRIGIRI-SAN!"

It was the one reaction she hadn’t seen yet out of Maizono—betrayal. Now there it was, etched into her face, draining whatever color she had left.

“It… it can’t be you. Believing in you was all I had left! I…”

“I’m sorry, Maizono-san, but I-“

”I can’t give that up! I’m going to believe in you until the end, Kiri- no… Kyouko.” Maizono choked on the words. “You were there for me when I was afraid, and- even if that was feigned, I still felt like nothing could hurt me when I was with you. You were kind to me! You… you can’t be the culprit!”

Kirigiri felt her resistance buckle, followed by hot tears on her face. She had betrayed Maizono. She was leaving her alone.

_She betrayed your trust by trying to have you framed for Kuwata’s murder._

_You betrayed her trust by killing and lying when she chose to believe in you._

A good minute passed. Togami eventually spoke, as if it were a chore. “All this has been very touching, but we still haven’t heard whatever incriminating memories Kirigiri supposedly has, at the other plankton’s insistence. Following that, I motion we get to the vote already.”

Kirigiri straightened her back. Now all eyes had shifted to her.

"I recall… last night, though I can’t remember the exact time. I found myself in the hallways on the second floor."

"Why were you there?"

"Let her finish!"

Kirigiri cleared her throat. “I recall the sensations, largely. I do remember something hitting me on the back of the head, but I also remember the feeling of dragging a body. That’s why I feared it must have been me.”

"Kyouko…"

"It seems as if we have the story now. Should we vote?"

"I figure we should."

"Yeah…"

"Upupupupu!"

She refused to turn her head at that unmistakable giggle.

"Are ya punks givin’ up already? Good, ‘cause I was starting to get bored with all your talk!"

"We believe we’ve a conclusion."

"Alright! It’s voting time!"

This was it. This was how it would end. They’d vote on the panels in front of them. Sentence her. Strap her in. Watch her die. 

For a moment, she closed her eyes, and heard her father beckon.

"YOU’VE GOT THAT WRONG!"

Kirigiri’s eyes snapped open. That wasn’t her father’s voice. First, it was too feminine. Second, Fujisaki held her frail arm pointed an inch from Monobear’s face. 

"Fujisaki, what _is_  it?!”

"Yeah! We know it was her, ‘right?"

"Nyohoho! Looks like Fujisaki-san’s finally got some guts!"

"What d’you mean, guts-"

"ALL OF YOU BE QUIET!" Maizono slammed her hands down again. "We have to listen to what she has to say!"

"Uu… I… I, um…" Chihiro clasped her hands. "I’m sorry for the disturbance, but… I never told you what I saw because of a… a threatening letter I received."

"A threatening letter?"

The programmer drew a wrinkled sheet of paper from her pocket.

"It reads, ‘Don’t tell anyone about the ghost you saw tonight, or you’ll be the next victim.’"

"Huh?" Asahina blinked. "A ghost?"

"S-so you see…" Chihiro said, voice so tiny that it was barely audible, "I… I’m not afraid anymore! I know that Kirigiri-san isn’t the culprit, and if we vote incorrectly, we will all pay the price!"

"Therefore!" That smile crossed Maizono’s face again- the sincere one. "We can’t vote now under these circumstances! We’ve found new evidence!"

"Upupu… Upupupupu! Fujisaki-san’s hope was great enough to shine through at just the right moment… Ah! I’m so overwhelmed, I think I might cry. Such trust in a friend… such hope." 

"Be quiet," Togami growled. "What’s this ‘ghost’? Who wrote you this letter?"

"I, um… it was… unsigned…"

"Nonsense! Anyone could’ve written this!"

"What about yourself, Togami-kun?" Asahina said.

"What?!"

"You seem awfully anxious to get to the vote! Why won’t you listen to Fujisaki-san?!"

"Fine. You tell me, Fujisaki. What ‘ghost’ did you see?"

"Well, um… it was last night.. I saw Enoshima-san walking in the halls toward the stairs." 

"B-but Enoshima-chi was executed!"

"Th-that’s the first reason I didn’t tell anyone…" Chihiro looked at her feet in shame. "But then the letter was slipped under my door an hour later. I… could’ve been next."

"So the first culprit’s alive." The sarcasm was thick in Mondo’s tone. "And she fuckin’ killed again?!"

"I- I’m sorry!"

Kirigiri’s pulse had slowed. There was a chance, new evidence to consider. So long as she had that, she had to try to reach the truth. She wiped the tears away and crossed her arms. She had work to do.

"Fujisaki-san," she began, "did you see her clearly?"

"I only saw her from the back, but… her hair and outfit seemed unmistakable."

"It is possible that this ‘ghost’ is the culprit-"  _and not me, not me,_  ”- and she, aware of Fujisaki-san’s sighting of her, slipped her a note in order to scare her into silence.”

"Upupupu! Are you bastards forgetting that little punk is dead? Gone? Kaput? We smashed her into bits and smashed those bits into more bits! She’s nothing now!" 

"Don’t you _dare_  speak of Junko-chan that way.” 

The tone was frigid enough to send a shiver down Kirigiri’s spine. It had come from Mukuro, her first words during the class trial. Her eyes burned with a type of barely controlled hatred that Kirigiri had never seen.

Monobear laughed.

"Are you forgettin’ that it was you all that led to her death! You voted!"

"YOU EXECUTED HER!" Mukuro’s fingernails dug into the wooden podium like a caged animal tearing at its restraint- like it was the only thing holding her back. "SHE’S DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!"

"Aw, you’re the shitty sister that couldn’t keep her on her medicine! You let her kill Kuwata-kun! I think it’s your f-"

The restraint broke and Mukuro moved in a flash, making a desperate grab for Monobear’s head. It was like a play; he saw the attack coming, raised his arms, sprang into the air over her head, and landed on the floor in one swift motion. “No-no! Violence against the headmaster is off-limits!”

"I’LL KILL YOU!" Mukuro screamed. It was a guttural sound, reverberating as if she were hollow. She repositioned herself immediately and grabbed for Monobear again, again, again. Each attempt met with failure.

The school rules were clear. Violence against the headmaster was punishable by death.

Sakura grabbed Mukuro by the waist as soon as she approached. “Are you mad?! You cannot launch into an attack on Monobear in the middle of a class trial!” 

Mukuro clawed at Monobear, stilljust a claw out of her reach. “W-why?!  _Why won’t you let me die?!_ ”

Kirigiri realized Mukuro knew it was a suicide mission; whether she succeeded or failed, her suffering ended.

"Upupu… is this what sets you human beings apart from animals, like us bears? You’ve gotta learn to cope with loss, pain, betrayal… No. You’ve gotta learn to have Hope. I know your hope will grow ever stronger, Ikusaba-san!"

The fight in her died; Sakura’s grip loosened, but Mukuro didn’t budge. Monobear walked back to his seat with a spring in his step.

"Ahem! Despite our outburst, we got shocking new evidence from Fujisaki-san! A ghost might be the culprit?!" He paused to chuckle, covering his mouth with his paws. "What a surprise!" 

"No, it can only be someone in disguise, right?"

Sakura shook her head. “Enoshima-san is no longer-” and she glanced down at the soldier in her arms, then revised her statement. “There would be nothing to gain from disguising oneself as Enoshima-san in regard to the possibility of being spotted before the murder.”

"Wh-what if it was lavender-hair here the whole time?" Fukawa said. "She could’ve dressed up as her!"

"I have nothing that resembles Enoshima-san’s outfits or hair color. You’re free to search my room for some kind of disguise."

"So who would be able to get to Enoshima-chi’s stuff, huh?"

It happened gradually—a small wave over the ocean before washing foot by foot over land. A few first turned to Mukuro, then the rest, then finally the last who were on the shore. The soldier’s limp posture didn’t change in Sakura’s arms.

"Ikusaba-san would’ve had access to her outfits and makeup at the least."

"Yeah, and maybe her hair dye or a wig or something like that…"

"Hold it. Why disguise herself as her sister?"

Mukuro shifted. Her figure tensed and Sakura’s grip strengthened, but she didn’t move to escape, only to loosen one arm enough to flash a peace sign. An odd smile appeared.

"Yoohoo! Junko Enoshima-san here!" 

"E-excuse me?"

She cocked her head. “It’s been so much work being at this stupid trial. Don’t we  _know_  it’s Kirigiri? Being here is so… despairingly boring. Ahaha!”

"Ikusaba-san! What’s the meaning of this?!" another person from the group asked.

"Don’t call me by my sister’s name!" she spat back. "It’s me! Super High School Level Fashion Girl— Junko Enoshima!"

"It appears as if she’s assumed the role of her own sister," Togami said. The sympathy in his sigh was more appropriate for someone who had lost a dollar. "It must be a coping mechanism for her loss."

"Which would give someone a reason to go out dressed as her instead of pretending to be someone else during a murder."

"I think we understand now."

"Pardon?"

A wave of relief hit Kirigiri. “Fujisaki-san saw Ikusaba-san, as her sister, heading upstairs to where the murder took place. This was likely the third party. She wrote the note afterward.”

"Hold on!" Mukuro shouted. "I didn’t write any threatening note! That’s the type of fuckin’ stuff Mukuro does!"

"Do we need to compare handwriting?"

Junko’s familiar pout looked strange on Mukuro’s face.

"Yeah, and also, didn’t we see Ikusaba-san around then?" said Asahina. "Not Enoshima-san?"

"Ah, yes…"

"Excuse me?" Togami asked. "Do you think you have something of importance to say?"

Asahina clenched her fists. “As a matter of fact, we do! I remember that Sakura-chan and I were in the cafeteria right before Night Time and Ikusaba-san came by!”

"… Interesting. Does anyone else have any information regarding ‘Enoshima’s’ whereabouts last night?"

"I, um…" Maizono said, "I heard a knock on my door right after the Night Time announcement… Ishimaru-kun did that to say he was going to sleep and wouldn’t be watching over my door any longer."

Kirigiri thought on this. “Did you hear his voice?”

"The problem is… yes, I did."

"Bah. That’s impossible. He was already dead at that time."

"Who says we can trust her anyway?!" Mukuro said. "She’s just as big a liar as the Mastermind!"

"It’s not impossible."

Togami cast a glance at Kirigiri. “What now?”

"What if we’re misunderstanding our timeline? Let’s lay it out this way: the murder time was left vague, despite an ‘instant death’. We also know that Fujisaki-san saw a ‘ghost’ walking down the hallway, Oogami-san and Asahina-san saw Ikusaba-san in the cafeteria before Night Time fell, and Ishimaru-kun may have knocked on Maizono-san’s door after the Night Time announcement."

"I’m listening."

"If the order of events is Ikusaba-san donning the costume, walking down the hallway, leading Ishimaru-kun and then murdering him, returning, removing her costume, passing through the cafeteria in a daze, hearing the Night Time announcement, then knocking on Maizono-san’s door and leaving the note under Fujisaki-san’s… there’s no conflicts there."   
  
That smile bloomed on Mukuro’s face again, Junko’s smile. Then her lips parted ever-so-slightly and a squeak escaped, breaking into a giggle, then exploding into hysterical laughter. Sakura let her go to avoid suffocating her; she was convulsing uncontrollably, gasping for air at irregular intervals.

The rest of the room was silent before Mukuro got up again, albeit shakily.

"That’s…" A switch flipped in her mind and she struck a pose, hair flying. "That’s fuckin’ adorable! But it ain’t gonna work out that easily, sweetheart."

"Is that so."

"This implies I visited the cafeteria after the murder. What purpose would that serve?"

Hagakure scratched his head. “Uh… putting the knife bac-“

"BZZZZZZZT! WRONG!" She threw her head back and laughed again. "How despairingly stupid of you! The knife was found in Kirigiri’s hand, you know!If it was one of the ones from the kitchen, wouldn’t I go before murderin’ someone so I had it as a weapon!?"

"Asahina-san," Kirigiri said, "did she go into the back, as if to retrieve a knife?"

"W-well… yes…"

Mukuro put her hands to her chin. “Aww! Looks like there goes your ‘wandering around lost’ theory! That’s super duper high school level sad! Aw, but you don’t even know the worst two parts!” 

"Do tell."

"Okay, ready? Listen close!! Mukuro-nee can do lots and lots of voices for her dirty old soldier stuff, but she’s not good at deep male voices like Ishimaru’s!" 

"I don’t understand-"

"You should’ve listened closer! So you hear what I’m saying?! Things couldn’t have happened at all in that type of timeline!" she said. "Plus, you keep dodging the fact that you said you moved the corpse!" 

Kirigiri winced at the mention. She didn’t count it as running from herself because she could reveal herself as a fraud, a disappointment. She liked to think she just hadn’t a rational explanation for why she would do that yet.

"So you all get it, right? I didn’t kill big ol’ mister hall monitor!" Another peace sign. "I’m 100% innocent!"

"And of the threatening letter that Fujisaki-san received?"

"That doesn’t even look like my handwriting! Anyone could’ve written that!"

"But you…"

_Something isn’t fully right here…_

"It still seems like there’s a lot of evidence that someone was there besides Kirigiri-san."

Mukuro shrugged. “Then it wasn’t me! Doesn’t Maizono sound more likely?”

"Wh-what!? I would never do that to her!"

"For all we know, you could still really fuckin’ want outta here!" Mukuro snapped back.Her scowl was identical to her sister’s. "Enough to kill for it!"

"I- I"

_If the culprit couldn’t have recreated Ishimaru-kun’s voice… then there has to be a situation in which he could have still been alive at that time._

"That’s enough, ‘Enoshima’. She claims she was in her room."

"Like we should believe her!"

_What if… there was a second murder outside the library? But the victim survived, even if they bled_ _quite a bit_ _, so it couldn’t have been me… but it also couldn’t have been anyone else._

"Then who can we believe?"

"Nobody! That’s the point of a goddamn game about killing!"

_If we don’t take the Monobear File’s word as absolute…_

Kirigiri opened her eyes.

"Mukuro Ikusaba."

"Junko Enoshima!" she snapped right back.

"I… I believe I remember now," Kirigiri said.

"Oh, this sounds good."

"Hypothetically, the true scene of the crime is not outside the library doors," she said. "Let’s say that the first thing that happens is Ikusaba-san retrieving the knife from the cafeteria, perhaps under the pretense of looking for food. Then she returns to her room and assumes the role of Junko Enoshima."

_But then…_

She realized she had paused.

"And?"

"And… we get the Night Time announcement. Ishimaru-kun said goodbye to Maizono-san; this is not up for debate, he must have been alive at the time. However, he was led by the ‘ghost’—Ikusaba-san—upstairs, where he was then killed instantly by the pool changing rooms."

"What about the pool of blood by the library doors?" asked Togami.

Maizono put her hand to her chin, unaware that she was miming Kirigiri. “I’ve been thinking also… how do we know the blood belongs to the victim?”

Kirigiri smiled again. “Just as I had suspected. It’s entirely possible that Ikusaba-san snapped out of her fugue state and realized she had murdered. Perhaps it was more her guilt over her sister’s death, though, that led her to hastily attempt suicide using the same knife.”

"W-what?!"

"Kirigiri-san, do you know what you’re proposing?"

She nodded. “I’ve thought about how I could have moved a dead body if I never touched Ishimaru-kun. I regret I cannot recall much still because all of us were in an altered state of mind due to starvation, and I due to sleep deprivation as well. However, it is beginning to seem more likely that I tried to assist Ikusaba-san and was knocked unconscious as a result.”

She hated jumping to conclusions and attracting so much attention. She also hated the direction this was going, but sometimes, the evidence only pointed to a single truth.

"Pray tell, why didn’t she just die then?" Togami asked. His tone still conspicuously lacked empathy. "Would that not have created  _two_ victims and placed more suspicion on you?”

"Because not everything is as cold and calculated as you estimate," Kirigiri said. "We were in an altered state of mind. In the end, maybe she couldn’t do it—she couldn’t finish taking her _own_ life.” It was different. Enemy soldiers were faceless. But with herself, one wrong move and she might harm the Junko within her.

Kirigiri and Mukuro were similar in that way; despite reputations for strict emotional control, their feelings directed them.

"Thus, our culprit set up the crime scene, became Enoshima-san again, and wrote the note to Fujisaki-san. If her mannerisms, speech, even appearance alter in her ‘Enoshima’ persona, I have no doubt that her handwriting could alter too." 

"B-but the time difference…?"

"Doesn’t apply if we do not take the Monobear File as absolute. If our Mastermind participated in the involuntary fasting as well, it would be easy for a mistake to be made. After all, Monobear said ‘don’t worry about the time’ in his special announcement." Kirigiri concluded. "Isn’t that correct?"

Monobear looked at his feet. “Aw, you weren’t supposed to guess that…”

“Ikusaba-san. If I am wrong, we should find no fresh wounds on your person after a quick look.”

The Junko within her had come to harm anyway. It was if she were struck—all at once, the bravado squeezed out of her like air trickling from a balloon. The confident smirk faded, and her aggressive stance fell back into the soldier’s usual rigid posture. A broken Mukuro Ikusaba was all that remained. 

"That won’t be necessary."

Her voice had changed back to ‘Mukuro’, or rather a mockery of her. It was as if she wasn’t used to herself. Her voice was eerily calm despite the fact she had begun to cry.

"I… I killed him. He was a random victim. I couldn’t think of Junko-chan as…I couldn’t see her in the past tense. I loved her— _I love her_ —in the present tense. I wanted her approval by making someone succumb to death’s despair. The… transformations into my sister weren’t voluntary. I just found myself there, dressed as my sister, with a corpse at my feet. She wasn’t there, wasn’t saying ‘Great job, Mukuro-nee!’ or anything similar. I…”

Mukuro’s sentence trailed off; it sounded like her throat had closed up. It took a few minutes for her to resume.

"I realized she wasn’t coming back. She was gone… and I… I carved her name into me," she finished, and smiled bitterly. It was the first time Kirigiri had seen her smile. It would have been nice on her, under different circumstances. 

"Surely, as a soldier, you are accustomed to death."

"I never experienced it on a… personal level. Allied soldiers fell, but I never knew them, so they were more like objects, or assets. I’ve done a lot of…questionable things, and it was all for Junko. Sometimes when I did a good job, she would act like she loved me. Then she would retract it if I didn’t perform to her tastes. And besides that, I… felt so guilty after putting her on that medication, and…"

"You had to make it up to her."

Kirigiri understood. Mukuro was trying to impress someone who no longer existed. Junko had been everything, and when Junko had died, Mukuro had died. She was hearing the voice of a living corpse. 

And there she was, in the remains of her facade, sobbing her sister’s name.

"I- I’m sorry, Junko-chan… sorry sorry  _sorry sorry_  I’m so fucking sorry. J-just-” She managed to look up. “Pl-please… start the vote.”

  
There was no instruction this time. The remaining students voted. Mukuro voted for herself for the second time.  

A moment passed.

"Looks like… you bastards were right! Mukuro Ikusaba is the killer!"

Another silent moment. 

"You were very open in your final moments," Kirigiri began.

"If you are looking for an apology-"

"No, no. I… believe your sister did love you in her own way. You showed her how much you cared for her by acquiring the medication and treating her, devoting so much timeand energy to her care. While she said she didn’t like the medicine, she took it anyway. I would like to believe it was for you," Kirigiri said, then paused. "But some would say that’s just a theory." 

"Thank you."

It only lasted a split second and wasn’t much more joyful, but Kirigiri was correct. Mukuro’s smile was beautiful. 

The next thing she knew, Maizono had walked to her side, taken her hand. 

She felt trust in her again. They exchanged grateful looks, partially just for being there.

"And thank you, Sayaka Maizono," Kirigiri found herself saying quietly. "Thank you."

"Ah… her hope never grew…" Monobear said, pantomiming tears with his paws. "Isn’t that just the saddest thing you’ve ever heard?"

Nobody answered. 

"I’m gonna take that as a  _yes~”_ he said, eyes locked on Kirigiri. “Now we have no time to waste! It’s punishment time!”

Monobear raised his gavel and swung it down, beginning the end of Mukuro Ikusaba’s life. 

—-

There was one thing she saw— her sister. The corpses around her were just that, corpses. Dead people in a world of their own. They weren’t Junko Enoshima.

"Junko-chan?" she offered.

No reply came. Relief still washed over Mukuro.

"Junko-chan!"

She found herself sprinting to Junko, tired bones crunching like dust under her feet. Her speed made her shirt flutter open  _just_ enough to show the name of her sister carved deeply into her not once, but twice, for each side of her. These things were inconsequential.

Just as her fingertips grazed Junko’s clothing, she turned to face Mukuro. Her face was so obviously a bastardization, a mix of Junko’s facial structure and Monobear’s facial features. It still wasn’t enough to steal her attention from the spear. 

If it were anyone else wielding the weapon, she would have dodged. She wouldn’t have heard the delicious sound of the spear piercing straight through her back. 

"Why did you let me die, Nee-chan?"

But the words hurt more. 

_"It was the mastermind,"_ she tried to say, but only a stream of blood came from her opened mouth.

Then another Junko approached from behind. She was identical to the first, from her perfect mockery of her movements to the way her fingers twisted the spear in her. 

"Why are you such an awful sister, Nee-chan?"

"Why do you think you deserve to live, Nee-chan?"

They weren’t unfamiliar words. Mukuro looked down and saw the point of a second spear pierce her chest. She didn’t scream but heard the words, “Why did you drug your only sister, Nee-chan?”

_"No no no. I wanted to help you,"_ she tried.  _"Kirigiri said— she said you went along with it-"_

"Why are you such a failure, Nee-chan?"

"Why couldn’t you even kill yourself properly, Nee-chan?"

Two more spears went through her either way, masterfully avoiding any vital organs. Now that she looked, Mukuro saw the corpses rising up were all Junko lookalikes— all of them, lifting up from the faceless people she killed in battle into the only person she truly loved.

"How can you live with yourself, Nee-chan?"

"Why did I ever call someone as horribly pathetic as you my sister, Nee-chan?"

"Why did you think I ever cared about you, Nee-chan?"

_"Please please forgive me I’m so sorry I’m sorry I’m so fucking sorry-"_

They had her surrounded until she couldn’t see anything but them. Mukuro’s eyes had filled with the vision of herself impaled from a million angles at once. The worst part was that she was right. Whoever was in charge of this was right. Junko never would have forgiven her. Junko never would have cared about her.

_"I love you, Junko-chan."_

The spears all ripped out of her at once. She collapsed onto her back onto the ground, nearby other unidentifiable dead. 

Mukuro Ikusaba closed her eyes one last time and died in despair. 

—-

Kirigiri awoke again like before: suddenly born into a world of multiple lights and pain. Her throat felt like a collection of brittle, cracked stones from her lack of food and water. 

"Welcome back, Kyouko-chan."

Kirigiri opened her eyes and saw Naegi’s face, glowing in front of the Data Processing Room’s screens. 

"I suppose you’re wondering what happened to Sayaka Maizono," he said.

Kirigiri glared in response.

"How do I know? Well, I just have good intuition."

"… Naegi."

"Upupupu… Looks like I’ve been found out! I know you figured me out last time. Isn’t it a shame you got no time to look into that?"

Something fell by her with a soft thump. It hurt to turn and look at it.

"It’s bread and water. You must be starving," he said, smiling widely. "Go ahead. Act like you don’t want it. It’s been three days. Or has it been longer? You don’t know anymore, do you?"

As soon as she lifted her head, his foot slammed down on top of it and ground her nose into the floor. It stifled her scream. Her head was exploding from the inside, the outside, everywhere, and each word he said tore through her ears like daggers.

"Did that hurt, Kyouko? How about this?" he mock-whispered, "Maizono is dead too. I just killed her for ‘violence against the Headmaster’. Doesn’t that break your heart?"

Dead. She was dead she was dead she was dead  _dead_  Maizono was  _dead_. It hit her again and again, Maizono wasn’t with her anymore, Maizono’s life was taken from her. She knew fully well it could be a trap, but she found herself squeezing back tears, not only for herself, but for the entire situation. 

"You were starting to really like her, weren’t you? You wanted to kiss her or some sappy shit like that after she stood up for you in the class trial, huh? It was like she was a new person!"

"Pl-please… stop…"

  
It sickened her. She had been reduced to nothing- less than nothing, less than something he could step on. Her entire body ached.

"What’s wrong, Kyouko? Did I take away everything you had too? Without sleep or food or anyone to trust, without your title as a Super High School Level Detective… are you nothing now?"

_Detective?_

"I see what truly makes people human. It’s selfishness and greed and misplaced hope. Hope doesn’t build anyone up, Kirigiri-san, it tears them down."

Her consciousness was slipping. It had to be for the last time; she couldn’t lose it that often in such a short time frame and expect to return every instance. 

"You’ve got that wrong."

There was pounding at the door. The weight on her head lifted. She heard the panicked breaths. He shouted in Monobear’s voice, “Th-this place is off limits to you bastards! Breaking in is against the school rules!”

Piece of metal went flying. Sakura was in the doorframe, fist outstretched where the door once was. And there was Naegi, frozen. Smiling.  

He moved as quickly as Mukuro had and grabbed the broken Kirigiri with one hand, the other holding a knife.“One move and she dies. Understand?”

There was just enough hesitation to satiate him. 

"That’s right. I’m your Mastermind," Naegi said in a voice cracking between elation and terror. "Upupupu! I- I starved with you as a student in this game! Now here we are, on the verge between life and death, as human beings! Isn’t it fucking wonderful!?"

Kirigiri was faintly aware of a loud clang against the floor. There was a partially-dismantled Monobear unit by Sakura’s feet. 

"Why…?" Sakura said, slowly at first. "WHY WOULD YOU DO ALL THIS?!"

"P-put her down!" Asahina screamed from behind her. "Put Kirigiri-san down! What did she do to you?!"

"Oh, just treat me like-"

"What, like dirt? Who’s holding the knife to someone’s throat?" Togami sneered. 

Kirigiri’s eyes scanned frantically to see if Maizono was among the group. She wasn’t. 

"I took your memories. All of them since you entered the school," Naegi panted. "That’s why you all woke up in classrooms. All of you… were awful people. The world went on fine for a long time without cocky Super High School students!"

They began to back away, step by step, behind the towering Sakura. 

"Were?"

He flashed a grin. “There might not be much left to escape to. Nothing, maybe. Isn’t that disgusting?”

Kirigiri found her voice amidst the abyss. That was the hardest thing. The second was managing to get her words out with the metal of the knife to her throat.

"I had… odd feelings about you," she managed. "How did you feel about me?"

"I love you, Kyouko-chan. But you never-"  

"I might have felt something like that in the past, but… now all I feel for you is pure, unbridled hatred. You’re a monster."

The energy welled up in her and her foot shot back. It connected hard with his shin, enough of a distraction for her to rip the knife from his hand by the blade. Naegi stumbled into his own surveillance screens.

Her grip trembled, but she stood firmly in the blizzard of her emotions. Anger, loss, betrayal, fear, hatred, despair, hope. Naegi shrunk under her broken expression. 

“It isn’t healthy to live for one person. Mukuro for Junko. Sayaka for me. Or you for me.” 

The students stayed at a distance. 

"We aren’t human because of hate or greed or unhappiness. That’s…" 

The knife clattered on the ground. 

"That’s why I won’t kill you." 

"I need you to kill me, Kyouko. I need to die by your hand." Naegi broke out laughing. "Kill me, Kyouko-chan, kill me!"

It would be tempting for Maizono, to take his life as revenge for hers. But then what would she prove? Would she be a living and breathing person or just a bitter animal like he wanted? 

"We’re going to restrain you as the Mastermind until you tell us all the details of what you’ve done. You’re going to give us an escape switch. You  _will_  live.” Kirigiri barely realized she was shouting, she was so separated from herself. “Do you understand?”

Whatever energy possessed her to finish the argument left. Kyouko Kirigiri collapsed. Her exhausted mind processed everything separately: Sakura’s booming footsteps, Naegi’s whines as she held him in restraint, other feet approaching, someone taking the knife and holding it away from the Mastermind, other arms taking her tattered form into their grip.

For an isolated moment, Kirigiri had the feeling it would be okay. Maizono flashed in her mind; she had truly had nothing to live for, having abandoned her dream along with her hope, and it hadn’t been an act. Maizono still had smiled at her and supported her when she had nothing to support herself.

She felt that Maizono wouldn’t truly die if she kept this knowledge with her. In her worst moment, Kirigiri found her widest smile. Yes, it would be okay now. She felt that it truly would before the world powered down around her. 

 


	3. Intermission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr link: http://264feet.tumblr.com/post/76791204572/bring-the-world-down-iii-mm-naegi

It was a beautiful morning, especially for Makoto Naegi to die. The air was cold and almost clear. The mass suicide was cleaned up after.

The latter part he felt indifferent about. Killing was nothing new to him, and nothing new to anyone in this world. He felt no connection to Super High School Level Despair. Colleagues were tools, just more difficult to handle.

"Ready?"

The voice was a few inches short of the bullseye. He didn’t turn to acknowledge it.

"… I suppose."

"It can always be another day."

It sickened him. “No. Our time is limited.”

"Yeesh, I was just acting concerned," the other said. Then there was singing.

There was singing the whole walk to Hope’s Peak.

—-

Something that interested Kirigiri was how the slightest pinprick could destroy the largest balloon. On this occasion, they opened the doors outside.

Their hopes didn’t burst all at once; rather, they suffered and deflated over the course of multiple days. Asahina stopped smiling. Chihiro awoke screaming in the middle of the night. Sakura kept training, albeit harder, with more weight behind her punches that never seemed to be quite enough.

A sense of duty still connected her to the world. Naegi demanded to talk to her, and while they would have other ways to make him talk about the damage he did, all the resources in the world had gone missing— and there was Naegi, having toppled the first domino.

It was a particularly cold morning in hell. They were still in the Academy, if by choice rather than by force. When they opened the vault door to the outside world, they hoped to see nothing in particular, meaning sights they would be accustomed to. Instead, the ‘nothing in particular’ was nothing really left.

_Sometimes no matter how much you hope, it just isn’t enough._

Kirigiri turned the words over in her head while in the hallway. It seemed like years ago that she had been told those words, and in a twist of fate, it felt like decades she had been asleep.

Each tentative step added up to her finding herself outside of the dorm with Sakura’s hand wavering over the handle.

"The meeting does not have to be today, if you are not ready, Kirigiri-san," was the familiar reminder. Each day came with an increase in gentleness, as if the fighter knew she was no Maizono and no replacement was suitable.

But today, the cold numbed Kirigiri. When she stole a glance at the outside world and caught the hints of snow, her mind took it as if it were the first time. She questioned if this was actually the case— if her father had liked the weather, too, and if they had ever played in the snow together as family.

The fire behind the numb drove her words: “I’m ready today.”

Of course Sakura was no Maizono; the idol would’ve caught that lie.

The door creaked open. The body, the air’s stagnation, the ropes, the coughed-up blood on the chin— all of it cleaved through her paper-thin layer of confidence. She had seen the dead bodies before as a participant-

_… detective,_

\- a detective. However, the murderers and the victims before were behind a wall in her mind, names on police files and autopsy reports. Now she was accustomed to both in a myriad of ways. She had investigated the deaths of her friends. Her family.

"Kirigiri-san?"

She found herself beginning to quaver as if it were cold inside too, then swallowed the words caught in her throat. Sakura was still by her side in the dorm. Naegi wasn’t dead. She had to remember that; even if he had refused to eat before and still did, even if he withered to a remnant of whatever he was, he was still alive.

And he had answers to give. **  
**

"Naegi," she said.

He didn’t- couldn’t- turn to face her. “Ah, it’s Kyouko-chan again! How are you on this fine day?”

"You wouldn’t tell your secrets to anyone but me. In that case, here I am. Start talking."

Naegi said nothing. Somehow, she got the sense he was beaming.

Sakura’s lumbering steps forward produced a sound that shook Naegi on his bed. Kirigiri said again, “Start talking. Now.”

His face contorted between elation and confusion. “Or what, Kyouko-chan? You’ll kill me?”

"Death is better than what you deserve."

He laughed, his throat raspy. “S’pose. Besides, if you kill me, you’ll never know what I did with-” he spat the name, “Maizono’s remains, remember?”

Remains—

"Upupu… Or is she alive? Is she crying your name? Is she waiting for you to find her and save her after all the trust she put in you?"

Maizono—

The image of the idol shot through her like a bullet. Her smile. The hum in her tone even as things got tense. How she stuck by Kirigiri’s side--

and died because of you

\-- and how Kirigiri had to figure out the truth even if it killed her too.

It was impossible that just those few words drained every ounce of her and left her as the shell she was during the mutual killing. It was impossible that she found herself unable to talk or move, all the deaths flashing before her eyes except the one she got to see.

Your father killed, she thought. Former friends and classmates killed without knowing who they really were. Maizono killed. Not that I truly trusted her--you wanted to trust her and that’s all that mattered--all of them-

The next thing she knew, Sakura had stepped back and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. The fighter still kept a threatening eye on Naegi.

"Reveal where you have placed her so she may be given a proper burial and funeral, like with the other lives you claimed," Sakura said, tensing. "Should you say say innocent blood is not on your hands, you shall answer to me."

"Well, I’m not gonna tell you if you’re gonna be a beary big meanie!” he giggled.

Kirigiri slipped from Sakura’s grasp and grabbed Naegi, her nails digging into his already-frayed skin.

“TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO MAIZONO-SAN! TELL ME WHERE SHE IS!”

"Kirigiri-san!"

"WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HER?!" she demanded still as she was pulled back, pulled from the room. Sakura held her broken form in one arm and slammed the door behind her with the other. Then, instead of showing anger in any form, she held Kirigiri in her arms until she stopped crying.

Kirigiri couldn’t blame herself for the nightmares or the triggers. They had all been through the same game of life and death. It only ruined her that she held that grain of distrust in Maizono until she couldn’t speak to her anymore.

For now, she focused on breathing. She was alive. A friend was with her. Things had been traumatic, but they could improve.

After several minutes passed, Sakura looked down at the detective’s still form. “Are you calm now, Kirigiri-san?”

"… I should not have lost myself."

"He has put us through much… stress. This was understandable," Sakura said. None of them thought of the few who were incapable of dealing with the reality of the situation, nor the evenfewer who took to the world outside.

"But, Kirigiri-san."

"Oogami-san?"

"Was the meeting forced to uncover the whereabouts of Maizono-san?"

The question was gentle, and it was because Sakura understood. She spoke of the idol in present tense with Kirigiri; even if Sakura wanted to avoid the topic, it was all that ran through Kirigiri’s mind.

Because it has to be a lie. It can’t be the full truth. It can’t be.

"I will find her," she said.

"Kirigiri-san—"

"Thank you, Oogami-san."

It would have been easy for Sakura to restrain Kirigiri as she brushed her off. She could disclose that she was the only other one of the survivors that thought Maizono must be alive somewhere and she could go back in that room and shake Naegi like a rattle until his secrets bled out. But she didn’t.

—-

_Dear Diary,_

For minutes, her pencil hovered over the comma before Kirigiri slammed the journal closed. It was an elaborate act; each day she’d open it and turn to a different page to write that same introduction only to find herself a mute. The small box the diary came in boasted it had plenty of pages to write in, and half of them so far only held two words a piece.

Kirigiri wasn’t one for reflection, and especially not in something so easily stolen. Reflecting gave her too much time to think. Too much time to think made her think of what happened. Making her think of what happened left her ripping her hair out and awakening ages later after an unhappy binge.

At some point, she stared at herself in the mirror and didn’t recognize who the exhausted, anxious face staring back was.

To instead occupy her mind, Kirigiri studied all the artifacts of their lost memories; doing so, however, just continued to distance her from the person she used to be. Who was this detective, so upbeat and unafraid? More importantly, why was Maizono standing so close to her and why wasn’t Naegi in any of the pictures?

Why?

A knock on the door. Too sudden.

"It’s unlocked."

Another minute before the door actually opened. Fujisaki. Definitely not someone trying to kill her.

They both stood waiting for one another to make the first move, both nervous wrecks.

Chihiro said in a small voice, “A-are you hungry? We were making dinner.”

As a matter of fact, the emptiness in her stomach tugged like a weight on her mind, but she had no appetite. So she told a lie: “I’m fine.”

Chihiro Fujisaki was no Maizono, either. She would’ve known that was one of the easiest and common lies, especially for her.

"A-are you sure, Kirigiri-san? Oogami-san, she—"

"I would rather not, truly."

"— she wanted me to tell you to be careful," she said in a tiny voice. "Sorry… you, um, said your door was unlocked, so be sure to keep it locked please! Sorry, I only… I- I don’t want anything to happen."

 _What else can happen when the world has ended?_  she wondered idly.

"I expect that Naegi hasn’t told us where the rest of Super High School Level Despair have gone," Kirigiri said. She studied the brunette’s face. The ashamed expression told her more than the worried answer would’ve. "It is fine. If we don’t overtax ourselves, we can reach out for help from other nations."

"Little of the infrastructure remains in order to—"

Kirigiri didn’t catch the last bit, instead focusing on the fizzing passion in the other girl (yes, definitely a girl, even if something was off) and her words. A true love for something would provide an escape from the world around them, but she only just remembered her skill at knifepoint. What escape was it if all she could do was immerse herself further into despair?

"— essentially, I’m inventing the internet," Chihiro said, clasping her hands together. "I think that then we can band together!"

"We don’t know."

"H-huh?"

"We don’t know if there’s anyone else out there. Or if they have been reduced to killing."

"I- I suppose that’s true." Tears welled up in Chihiro’s eyes. "I’m… I’m sorry I’m so useless."

Just as abruptly as the words left her mouth, she found her hand on the brunette’s shoulder. “You aren’t useless. We can fall to neither despair nor Naegi’s idea of ‘hope’.”

Chihiro looked her in the eye. She saw her own twisted reflection in the glassy pupil, then saw it vanish as Chihiro began to cry again. “N-no. I am because I’ve, um. I’ve betrayed our group, the survivors.”

"What do you mean, ‘betrayed’?"

"I mean… I mean I’ve been working on something behind everyone’s back." She slipped back into her remote look, as though her frail body was only a more complex machine to house her thoughts. The words came out equally mechanically, devoid of their usual waver: "It was a project I had worked on during the ‘game’ to survive me if I died. It had the purpose of helping us escape. I now have used it to question the Mastermind remotely and compile information."

Kirigiri paused to take in this information. “Only because you haven’t notified us of this project yet doesn’t mean betrayal.”

"No," she said steadily. "He was interrogated as you."

"I— I’m sorry, could you elaborate?"

"It took all the information it had on you, as in your speech patterns and things you were likely to say. Alter Ego--what I’m discussing--created an artificial representation of you, then…" The passion of invention and programming faded in her tone and the guilt set in. "I- I was awful. I used its voice to remotely question the… the Mastermind and gather information. Um, when you m-met him today, did he seem too familiar?"

_"Ah, it’s Kyouko again! How are you on this fine day?"_

"He did," she said, just as remote as Chihiro had been.

The programmer clasped her hands. “Alter Ego ran, um… tests. It captured the Mastermind’s personality and pitted it against yours. I did it during the nights when I… couldn’t sleep,” she said— the nightmares, they all had them. “There were simulated conversations and interactions, upwards of thousands per night. Th-there have been many new leads gathered,” she said, then found the courage to face her again, “but you didn’t succumb to ‘despair’ in any scenario but one of them.”

Kirigiri wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. Still, she found herself asking, “Which one was that?”

"I… I can’t tell you. I’m sorry," Chihiro said. "I… I can only say it has to do with someone else. Someone who the Mastermind wouldn’t refer to in— in any way but a face-to-face meeting."

"Then we have to speak to him again."

"B-but Kirigiri-san!" she exclaimed, "I mean— I mean about earlier. What if he…"

"That’s something we will accept as a risk."

Something about the mystery did awaken a spark inside her, and she had yet to tell if it was good or bad. But like a spark, it lit a fire that she couldn’t control either way.

"I’ll… get Oogami-san, then," Chihiro said. They needed her now to keep Kirigiri—rather than Naegi--in balance. No, they all had to support one another at this time in their lives.

Maizono… why had she let this ruin her? Was it that Maizono died when she survived? That Maizono put all her trust in her but she held it at an arm’s length? That Maizono spilled her heart out to her and she both didn’t care and couldn’t trust?

All these things twisted the knife in her already, but there was something else. There was a backside to the coin; it simply turned within when she tried to look.

Chihiro re-entered with Sakura. Now Kirigiri had too many thoughts and no way to express them, especially not on paper, so she put the diary in a drawer and locked it with her questions.

There was another mystery to solve. As an apparent detective, a Super High School Level Detective, it was up to her alone now.

—-

"You’re back. It took you forever."

It had been an hour.

His voice weakened again, the aftereffects of staying locked up in this room, not that he minded. She had to wonder if he could feel his limbs by this point. Motioning for Sakura to fetch a glass of water, she settled in a distance away from the restrained mastermind.

"I was busy." Kirigiri leveled her stare. "It’s on my courtesy that we have these meetings. I can arrive at my leisure."

"You’ve got that wrong," he said, breaking into a raspy laugh. "You’re gonna want to get it outta me ‘fore I die, Kyouko-chan."

"There are ways of forcing you to eat."

"Gee," the voice was Monobear’s, "I sure do hope they aren’t as effective as your amazing ways of getting me to talk! Or else you bastards will keep gettin’ nothing done!”

Every word out of his mouth infuriated her. Kirigiri snatched the glass of water from Sakura and forced Naegi’s jaw open with one hand; with the other, she poured the water down his protesting throat. He coughed part back onto his jacket and shirt as she nearly broke the glass against the nightstand.

"I hope you are satisfied now," she said, voice a hiss, "but I swear that I will make you wish I would kill you if you don’t start talking.”

"Go ahead, Kyouko. Kill me."

"I wouldn’t be any better than you if I did," she said. "Now tell me. I took the time to meet with you in person," Kirigiri added the last bit because of Alter Ego, "not that you deserved it. Why won’t you speak of what you had on your mind?"

"It was only one thing I wanted to tell you," Naegi said. A bit of his confidence seemed withered. "It was from the past."

"That you stole from us."

"I suppose if you don’t want to hear it…" he trailed off, staring into space.

"I suggest you just out it," Kirigiri said dryly. There would be some other catch, she figured; beg or harm him or something. Instead, the smirk faded off his face.

"I’m not the sole person in charge."

The words hung in the air. She tried to picture two Naegis, one of them lurking in the shadows. It almost made more sense that he didn’t care if he died, but on the other hand, his apathy seemed genuine.

When she realized she had yet to react, she glanced at Sakura. Her features only showed disbelief.

"Then what was the identity of the other person?" Kirigiri asked.

"I don’t remember."

"You don’t remember."

"I can’t remember!" It came out as a cracking laugh. Something we can't do, she thought, and didn’t spare him the pity. “I’m such a failure… I long for the kiss of death, where there is no hope nor despair any longer!”

Naegi tried to laugh again, but this time it came as just a cough. His hoodie was draped like a blanket over his body; now on his side, she could see the faint outline of his ribcage. Kirigiri found herself saying, “Release him.”

"Kirigiri-san?" Sakura said and frowned.

"Have his arms unbound, even if temporarily. Don’t fully let him go. It’s inhumane to keep a person like this." She couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. "He at least said something, even if it could be a bald-faced lie."

There was a moment’s hesitation before the fighter made her way to Naegi and undid the ropes around his arms in one swift motion. He sat up and stretched. His sleeves sagged, either intentionally or not on his part showing the rope burns at his wrists.

"I suppose Kyouko must care in some light! Maybe it’s because of that dead bitch, Maizono—"

SMACK!

With a gasp he fell back onto the bed. A red mark remained on his cheek, loud and stinging.

Kirigiri again found herself posed post-action. Her hand was raised, and there were words she was saying without much thought: “That hasn’t made up for it either. But you will eat and you will tell us what you did and with who, even if it kills me. You aren’t the Naegi I apparently knew.”

She studied him. She searched furiously for any hint of sanity or reasoning in him, but a moment later, he turned back on his side and let himself be bound again in a different manner.

"If I’m not the Naegi you knew, you’re not the Kyouko I knew," he said after an instant’s hesitation. "She was calm and rational, like you managed during the game. Now you’ve become obsessed. With… someone else. I don’t know you."

Another few seconds passed before she lowered her hand. When Kirigiri thought about it, she had no idea who she was becoming either. She had no idea who she was.

"Who are you to give a lecture when it’s your fault to begin with?" she said as steadily as she could manage.

"Is it my fault? Or are neither of us choosing to feel hope and despair? What if we’re all chosen instead to fight for either one, just pieces on a grand playing field?" he said. His voice was the first indicator— not bombastic and full of zeal like usual, instead more akin to despair. "Maizono is closer than you think. At least, as far as time goes."

His words blended and twisted and stretched every which way but in one that made sense. She recalled asking what he meant or why he said it, but she mentally got further and further away at the mention of Maizono’s name. And Naegi was already too far gone.

—-

The world crunched like gravel under their footsteps. The duo walked in unison, though they hadn't started off as such.

He had far too much dust in the dark locks overflowing from his head. The suit hung off of him loosely as if he were the one who shrunk in the wash. None of the collapsed skyscrapers caught his eye.

She took every step carefully as if at her first dance recital. Her hair was alarmingly blue, and the way she carried herself was almost enough to convince onlookers was natural. Unlike her companion, there remained some indication her clothes had once looked good, but now didn’t quite add up to one perfect whole.

Both seemed off, like they were dolls cobbled together from different toys. 

"Hey, Izuru."

Rude. He had half a mind to call her ‘Sayaka’, then didn’t. At least the singing had stopped.

It always struck him as odd; by moonlight, she was almost beautiful.

"What, Maizono-san."

"My eye’s been hurting ever since… you know. Why don’t we take it out now and save time?"

Izuru didn’t stop walking. She pouted and chased after him, calling his name.

"That’s a stupid idea," he said once the academy was in sight. "All of you are such beasts."

"Ah, but don’t forget, Izuru." A wink. "I’m your beast.”

He studied the concept she displayed called ‘emotions’, then seemed unconvinced. “I’ll call animal control.”

"Not even Tanaka-kun’s gonna listen to you! I’m higher up on the totem pole, as they say!”

This wasn’t entirely true. There was no structure. Either of them had danced with death at least a dozen times on the way here, and half of the time, the gunshots didn’t bother to stop even after the shooter recognized them.

Still, he wasn’t about to win any popularity contests. So he stayed silent until they stood at the vault door to Hope’s Peak Academy.

"Do we gotta do this?" Maizono asked.

"It’s what Naegi-san wants."

"Ugh. I hate that little runt, anyway." She studied Izuru, then said, "You want to kill him, don’t you?"

"Let me guess. You know because you’re an esper."

Izuru heard her complain about his theft of the punchline, but he was already punching in the number code. He was well aware of the machine gun pointing directly at his head. One slip and he could end it all; he didn’t mean in an accidental sense. Right then, all he could think was how easy it would be to put this all behind him. To let the gun splatter his head across the wall so he’d no longer have to deal with Maizono, Naegi, the hope, the despair.

But the vault door opened without trouble.

"Ready?"

"Ready."

A look of something close to trust passed between them. Then they ran inside.

—-

Smoke. There was so much smoke. Kirigiri opened her eyes. It might have been the middle of the night, it might have turned to morning already, but her eyes burned too much to tell.

Her second note: at the brink of her vision was an angel. Kirigiri could tell because of her halo.

"Hello?" she wanted to call out. All that came was a wheeze; the dense air forced itself down her throat similar to how she forced Naegi to drink water earlier.

The halo was gone. Kirigiri rolled off to bed and gave chase with her lungs on fire.

There seemed to be less smoke in the hallway, if only because there was more room for it to spread out. That was when she caught her first glimpse of the blue hair. The school uniform. The slim figure. The flames surrounding her from the floor to the roof like a picture frame.

"MAIZONO-SAN!"

And Maizono turned and had the most terrified look in her eyes and then took off running again. Kirigiri darted after her. She had never moved so quickly with her feet flying over the bits of the other floors that had already begun to collapse down on her. The vault door was so close, so close—

The world exploded. It was as if she had plugged her ears to the agony around her and then had it cut off. There he was. Yamada had fallen from an unstable part of the second floor into a heap that was quickly setting alight. He fought back tears of pain— there, they were going to be stuck there as more and more debris piled on top of and around him.

Kirigiri had no idea how many of them were still locked inside. They couldn’t get anywhere, so she tried stirring the rather large Yamada from his semi-conscious state. She called his name and shook his shoulders but he only sank deeper both into his mind and into the debris.

Then a figure lifted him; Sakura. She was saying something but Kirigiri was already running again toward the school’s entrance. It was the clear opposite of light at the end of the tunnel; rather, it was the only part that wasn’t licked with flickering orange paint.

And she was almost there before it caught her eye. It was only a splotch of ink on the school’s desecrated canvas, but that’s what made it stand out. Kirigiri pivoted and found herself in Naegi’s room.

Overwhelming smoke, the familiar stench of blood— She had yet to figure out why blood was familiar. But there it was, outside the library’s doors. There was a thick scrape in the door as well, glinting with crimson. “You must be wondering why this is so familiar,” Maizono had said, — Kirigiri found herself paralyzed by it, both the encompassing reek of it and the knife in Naegi’s back.

"Pretty funny, Kyouko," he said, and his face seemed to melt. Time stretched in every direction as his words had. Slow, fast, backwards— "Pretty funny, Kyouko," she had heard again a dozen times after he said it. Then she shook her head and it was there again. “Didn’t Ishimaru-kun die kind of like this? Ha ha ha… memories…”

"Naegi, you’ve got to get out of here." All the destruction around them seemed dreamlike at his complete serenity. "We can help you," came her words, forced and distorted.

He waltzed closer to the fire.

"Nobody deserves to die like this," Kirigiri managed.

"Humans…" it caught the leg of his pants and the fire roared to a new life on his body, "are animals that have things to live for. Maizono, she… lived for you. Ikusaba-san for her sister. When a human runs out of reasons to live, it’s time to dispose of them. Especially someone like me."

The words arrived automatically. “Then what about you? What were you living for?”

Even by the light she couldn’t see his full face; there was no smile. It seemed all the discord in his mind had parted and he saw clearly for the first time.

And still, he said, “The many faces of hope.”

The paralyzing fear drained from her and she reached out; he took his last step forward, his back wings of flame, and the unstable floor above gave way. Makoto Naegi was buried in a grave of debris.

The next few seconds were blacked from her memory, as if to save her, but she found herself running from the school using the scraps of energy she found. It was no matter what was left behind.

Hope’s Peak lit up the night. It finally was the beacon of hope she had always considered it.

When she caught her breath and got a grip on her surroundings, it disturbed her how still the air was.

The clouds were a solid, stagnant ceiling over the world. They were punctured by holes but Kirigiri wasn’t surprised, because there wasn't much left in this world that wasn’t.

In the air, a gust of bullets. Some were aimed in her general direction. Kirigiri took note of two groups: one had pressed ahead to a shelter of some kind, the other- considerably smaller- stayed behind to aid those trapped inside. Sakura was shouting something, something about there being two left inside, and she wasn’t going to take that risk. Maizono died because of her lack of trust; Naegi died because of her failure to act. Nobody else was going.

Sakura ran inside with Kirigiri at her heels. Only once did she turn her head.

“Naegi-kun’s status?”

“Dead.” The word came out in such a way not even she believed it. But now, her emotions had been hidden in the back of her mind. Sakura turned back and Kirigiri couldn’t read her expression.

As abruptly as the fire started, something caught the fighter’s attention shortly after and she stopped in her tracks. “Oy! What do you think you’re doing?!”

Kirigiri stopped herself from running into her and turned to see a halo. Rather, it was a sword of gold and it rested in a steady pair of hands. They were Sayaka Maizono’s.

But immediately behind her was a second figure, gripping a knife as if he just discovered what the tool was. He was as unconcerned as Naegi on top of a layer of boredom and he raised the knife— then the night split in half with a crack as Sakura threw her weight onto the figure. The knife clattered onto the ground along with Maizono’s sword; the girl herself stood as if in a daze.

“Maizono-san!!”

The suited figure managed to squirm from Sakura’s grasp and turned her weight against her to throw her down. Both he and Maizono scrambled for the knife and the blood on it that was likely Naegi’s own. The fighter moved fast as a flash of lightning and her hand encompassed the weapon. Kirigiri winced at the snap, but when Sakura pulled back, the hilt had completely separated from the blade portion, which bent to the whim of her fist. Only then did Maizono turn back and exclaim: “Kirigiri-san!”

Her voice was remote and off, but it was her voice. Kirigiri grabbed her hand and led her from the school as Sakura grabbed the stranger, who protested the entire way to safety.

Kirigiri took a full breath of fresh air as she hurdled over the last debris outside. Oowada stood some meters away fixing a car— hotwiring, it looked like, before he slammed the door. “It’s not my style, but we’ve gotta get the fuck outta here! Come on!”

None of them protested, Kirigiri and Maizono taking the back while Sakura and her hostage (at this point; he smelled unsurprisingly of lighter fluid and never stopped kicking) into the front. He floored the gas and they took off with a screech into the desecrated world.

And finally, the fire caught the reserve of Monobear units, self-detonators and all. Kirigiri thought her eardrums would burst at the sound, but the damage was largely contained to wherever they were kept. And finally, Hope’s Peak Academy collapsed in on itself, a smouldering grave seemingly to hope itself.

—-

They took the hijacked car as far as it would go. It conveniently had enough gas to get them to the first group. The area seemed to be a neutral zone, a place that was simply broken rather than undergoing current destruction.

Sakura looked at a makeshift list. “Kirigiri-san.”

“Here.”

“Asahina-san.”

“Here!”

“Fujisaki-san.”

“Here.”

“Celes-san.”

“Here.”

“Yamada-kun.”

“H-here…”

“Hagakure-kun.”

“Here!”

“Oowada-kun.”

“Here.”

“Fukawa-san.”

“Here…”

“Togami-kun.”

“Here.”

“And—”

“And Maizono-san,” Kirigiri interrupted. “Maizono-san is alive like I thought. But he didn’t make it.”

There was no time to mourn, nor to ask questions. Maizono squeezed her hand when she said her name. Even now Kirigiri felt a small push away from a full anxiety attack. There were too many bad experiences with fire.

“We have but a brief time—”

“Yeah, the rest of them should be looking for you,” the stranger said.

“Who the hell do you think you are?!”

“Pardon me for not introducing myself in all the commotion. Izuru Kamukura.” He seemed on the border between bored and amused. At what? His capture? The destruction of Hope’s Peak?

“D-did you really kill Naegi-chi?! Fess up!”

“So what if I did? He was a useless human being, just like he said. It was my job to dispose of him.”

“Nobody is fuckin’ useless!” Oowada snarled, closing in on his perfectly stoic face. “It doesn’t matter how much of a bastard he was! You can’t just kill people like that!”

“Hm. How hypocritical. I presume your former little gang was responsible for many, many deaths. Even you, if you think you never killed a man. How many lives did you indirectly ruin by desecrating shops and towns? How many murders did you enable by leading the murderers?” Even in his captured position, he gave a frigid look right through Mondo Oowada. “Don’t make me laugh with your reasoning.”

He failed to show even a sliver of a reaction as Sakura tightened her grip. “Do not speak such nonsense. No matter what sins have been committed in the past, the correct hour to turn to the lawful path never passes.”

“Then would it be correct to kill me now?” He raised his eyebrow in the faintest satisfaction when they hesitated. “It’s but one life taken. I could escape and go out and steal the lives of entire families. It’s a wonderful trade. Does it not make you responsible for the deaths I cause if you hold me until I escape rather than end my life? What do you think ‘hope’ is?”

“It’s for the same reason we didn’t kill him even if you did,” Kirigiri said. She had clenched her fists in disgust; seeming so unconcerned with his own death was the exact attitude Naegi had displayed. “If we had killed him, would we have been any better than he was for organizing killings involving us?”

It was Izuru’s turn to pause. Kirigiri didn’t allow him time to gather his thoughts. “He’s stalling us so they can catch up to us. Let’s move.”

With no fuel left, they had no choice but to run. The adrenaline rush had begun to dim; after a brief time, a few took a place in the back of the crowd, gasping for air.

Someone cried out. Someone stopped running. Kirigiri looked over her shoulder. The shower of bullets hit behind her; there was someone in pooling blood at her back; Chihiro Fujisaki was missing.

Chihiro Fujisaki was behind her.

"Fujisaki-san!" she called out and stopped in her tracks. A sudden burst of pain came and her arm nearly tore out of its socket; Sakura had grabbed her hand and was shouting at her to continue but Chihiro couldn’t die. Not here.

Sakura understood. A continuation of their break, time to regroup, to rechart their destination. They might find somewhere worth heading this time. Then Kirigiri was there by Chihiro’s body, but the girl pushed her first aid kit away.

"I-it’s alright… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but it’s too late."

She dropped the kit on the broken concrete beside her. Chihiro’s small hands failed to contain the spread of blood.

"Fujisaki-san—"

Not another. Not again. But the look on Chihiro’s face was terrifyingly final, like she had reached into a basket containing all her remaining minutes to live and had scraped the bottom.

"— it’s not too late. It isn’t. We can reach a hospital. We can. We shouldn’t be too far away."

"Kirigiri-san, th-there’s something I have to tell you."

Her mind complied before she did and the panicked words ceased. She knew she couldn't interrupt someone’s last words.

Later, she’d realize her mind had accepted them as ‘last’.

"I’m… I’m sorry for lying about Alter Ego, and I’m sorry for lying about myself."

Of all people, Oowada crouched down next to them both. His words were surprisingly gentle: “Nobody’s mad. And nobody said you lied.”

"I’m— I’m actually a boy, the both of you."

The words that took so much effort to keep hidden were then in the air.

Chihiro continued, “I was always bullied for— for being weak. Sometimes, they knew I wouldn’t fight back, and would threaten to kill me.”

"… So you dressed up?" Oowada asked.

Chihiro managed to nod. “But now I… I don’t feel as weak. If anything I have worked on is of use in bringing the world back to its feet, then… that is strong.”

"That’s the strongest, bravest thing I can imagine."

“You were also very strong at our last class trial,” Kirigiri said. “You exposed the note that led to the capture of Ikusaba-san when I was about to be voted guilty.”

“Th-thank you…” There was a smile, a chance it wouldn’t be a death in despair. “Please take Alter Ego along with you. And…” His head turned from Oowada to Kirigiri. “K-Kirigiri-san.”

"Yes?"

"I think… I think it is you that needs to forgive yourself."

His head tilted back onto the ground, and all was left was the complex machine that once housed his thoughts. The corpse of the boy, Chihiro Fujisaki. All they had left was the program that ended up surviving him as intended.

More gunshots roused them from the stillness of the moment. “W-we have to move!” Hagakure demanded, grabbing Oowada’s collar. The biker turned and smacked his hand away.

"We aren’t just fucking leaving the kid here! It’s our fault in the first place we didn’t get him to a hospital in the first place!"

"I-if we don’t move, we’re gonna end up like her— him! I foresaw it, ‘right?!"

"Stop!" Kirigiri jolted to her feet and stood between the two of them. "Both of you are correct. Oowada-kun, take Fujisaki-kun’s body. We must hurry."

He bent down, then touched the body--still warm--then stopped, reached out, reconsidered, pulled off his jacket, and wrapped it around Chihiro. The deceased’s head bobbed in his arms.

Oowada broke out into an all-out sprint with the rest of them as if their lives depended on it.

Rubble and lord knows what else crunched under their shoes. All of them hopedsomeone elseknew the path. The course only gradually shifted by areas blocked by fire rather than hopeful whims. Not far ahead was the Tokyo Imperial Palace. The swelling in their spirits now had to be hope.

Maizono caught Izuru’s eye. They shared a knowing look, or they would have; Maizono’s face betrayed the slightest seed of doubt before she chose to fall.

“Kirigiri-san!!” she cried like it was an accident. Kirigiri skid to a halt and picked up Maizono before she carried on running. There was no time to stop again, but she wasn’t leaving her behind. The additional weight added extra strain to each step but it was Maizono, so she endured.

“You may call me Kyouko again, should you want,” she said with the energy she managed to find.

“R-right, Kyouko.”

“I can’t wait any longer. I need to know what happened to you. I knew his words had to be lies.”

“I… he threw me down a garbage chute. After the trial, you were so out of it because of all you went through. I found myself pulled aside by Monobear, and… there was Naegi-kun! He threw me down into this garbage pile where all the nasty crushed stuff went after Enoshima-san’s execution, but I finally escaped later.”

They came across a group of men smashing another man with baseball bats. They seemed to be the only ones in the area; Sakura scattered them. Kirigiri got time to breathe, but even the air seemed tainted at his name.

“Naegi.”

“Y-yes. You seem to have very… mixed feelings regarding him.”

“I once thought myself to be incapable of fully hating someone, but…” She clenched her fist, thoroughly disgusted. “Even if he was a monster beyond reproach, he didn’t deserve to die in such a heinous manner.”

“You don’t believe the way he did that people deserve to die for their crimes?”

Her tone was purely curious rather than upset, but Kirigiri was too tired to catch it. “I feel he must have acted like he was a good person before he tried to have us all killed. It doesn’t excuse what he did, but the more we make the past clear, the more I’m sure he acted like he was good at heart.”

“I only doubt that because you aren’t fooled by lies so easily, Kyouko.” This in itself was true. She only trusted Maizono when it seemed to be posthumous. “What if he actually was a good person?”

“I… I find that hard to believe. He said once he had loved me. I can only accept that as a lie. Someone like that didn’t seem capable.” Unless he wasn’t always ‘like that’, her mind concluded.

“You deserve someone much better anyway, Kyouko. Someone who will treat you properly.”

The words seemed to come from the heart. It was then that Kirigiri really saw Maizono. She thought she knew her, and she thought she acknowledged her appearance, but she hadn’t truly processed it yet. She thought Maizono was beautiful. It was something from the light in her eyes to the melody in her voice. Something like when-

she betrayed you

\- and Kirigiri’s mental state skidded to a halt. What did she think she was doing? She liked Maizono, but she didn’t like Maizono. Her own experiences with love had involved, potentially, one high school crazed murderer. Could she afford another?

She never went through with it, a part of her reasoned.

She meant to.

She made it up to you.

It could’ve been an act.

It wasn’t.

It was.

Kirigiri looked up and realized the fight had evaporated **.**  Maizono hung on some type of possible response, but she had none.

They got up in unison, neither worse off from the bridal carrying situation. Past the streets devoid of cars and the lonely, silent rails, the Imperial Palace wasn’t far ahead.

—-

“We can’t.”

“We have to.”

A growing dread worsened in the group with every step they took. It was times like this that Kirigiri heard the voices of the dead. Ishimaru would be demanding they turn back for it wasn’t the Emperor’s birthday; Enoshima would have taken newfound delight in every detail of the world since they left; Chihiro—

Fujisaki-san— no, Fujisaki-kun…  **  
**

“We will take one last rest before passing Nijūbashi into the main gate,” Kirigiri said. This time, Oowada understood; she hadn’t thought they would ever have been on the same level.

They gathered in a circle by the great bridge. So many of the roads had ruptured and buildings had fallen, leaving nature to reclaim parts of Tokyo. A sapling had begun to take root in what looked like the aftermath of an explosive, and it was there that Oowada approached with small steps. It was as if the weight in his arms had grown heavier with the knowledge of what he was about to do.

"You won’t be able to dig through the ground. The weather’s made the dirt far too solid," came Izuru’s first words of the hour. "Maybe you need my help."

"Of fuckin’ course I don’t need your help!" Oowada snarled, to which Izuru just smirked and said, "Really? You did before."

Neither of them were willing to speak. Oowada wasn’t one to play mind games; his strength was physical, and it seemed like Izuru was out of his playing field.

"Oowada-kun," Sakura said. "I can escort him elsewhere."

A look had chiseled into his face that Kirigiri couldn’t recognize— guilt? “No. Let him dig the grave. That’s his penance.”

At least, both of them knew that this was an admission that Izuru killed Chihiro indirectly just as much as it was that Oowada had killed others indirectly.

Izuru tore out great chunks of the Earth with his bare hands, the only sound for several minutes besides Oowada’s breaths. Then with a touch of reluctancy, Maizono spoke up: “I think it’s time that he started telling us what he knows about this Super High School Level Despair.”

"I have all sorts of information if you—"

"NO!"

They all flinched as the biker only then jolted back to life. “I mean, not right now! We'll do it another fuckin’ time!”

"Kyaaa! Mondo Oowada-dono has lost it!"

"I haven’t lost shit! I’m fine!”

"What is the cause of this divide between our group of friends?!" Sakura demanded as she stepped between them. "This is not the time to turn on one another! Do not force him to talk if he—"

"You boys stay in line—" there was a flick of the finger and the point of the metal claw extended- "ESPECIALLY YOU, MUSCLE BITCH! YOU AREN’T THE LEADER OF ANY OF US! HAVE HIM TELL US WHAT WE NEED TO BLOODY KNOW!"

"Don’t you dare talk to Sakura-chan that way!"

"Excuse me? If I poke you with this claw, will I pop the silicone in your breast, Asahina-san?"

"Everyone! We’ve been, like, trying to escape from death in this weird place for ages, ‘right? We all gotta calm down—"

"HOW DARE YOU THREATEN ASAHINA?!" Sakura turned sharply in place and towered over Celes as if the earlier insult to her hadn’t mattered nearly as much.

"W-will all of you just sh-shut up?! Byakuya-sama, make them all be quiet! You’re the only one who should speak!"

"Did I give you permission to open your filthy mouth?"

"H-hey! What are you doing, ‘right?! Let go!"

Shouting. All of them were shouting until their voices became a mesh of noise, an eruption of their built-up despair. Their words pounded in Kirigiri’s ears and tore at her mind and just blended into the festering hatred that finally snapped.

Kirigiri looked up at the splash. Chihiro, sinking in the moat; Izuru battling for footing on the ground after the toss. He had almost began to escape before Oowada seized him by the tie. “Bastard! What did you do?! Where d’you think you’re going?!”

He gagged. Oowada crushed any hopes he had of breathing; it was all he could do to keep his eyes in his head. Izuru’s words came out strained through his tightly-squeezed throat: “Let— let me go. Don’t make me tell them about—”

"SHUT UP!"

"G-go ahead. Do it. Show them how strong you are."

"Strong-"

"DO IT!"

"STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG STRONG—"

"OOWADA-KUN! STOP!"

"— STRONGER THAN YOU!"

A clear in the shouting.

"STRONGER THAN DESPAIR!"

A turn to see the scene and Izuru’s face falling purple over his grin.

"STRONGER THAN ANIIIIIIIIKKKKKKIIIIIIII!"

A swivel, a crack, a scream, a collapse gone unnoticed. It happened too quickly for details. She only remembered how his face contorted.

Hifumi Yamada: Dead

What was that, what was th-

"Nothing, Kyouko!"

"AAAH! YAMADA-KUN!!"

A select few turned to regard the body or Oowada, eyes wide, fist dyed in Yamada’s blood. Izuru gasped for air behind the body, still holding onto his collar. It wasn’t a person anymore but an object to shield him, not that he valued the difference to begin with.

"Why? Why him?! Why did he have to die?!" came Oowada’s demand; Kirigiri recognized his look now as pain.

"He was too close and he was worthless as ‘Fujisaki-tan’. That’s it," Izuru said.

"PAY SOME RESPECTS TO THOSE KIDS! NOBODY’S FUCKIN’ WORTHLESS!"

"OOWADA-KUN! CEASE THIS AT ONCE!"

It came as an accident. He lunged. She intervened. A scuffle; a greater snap. Oowada’s last look was the same guilt.

Mondo Oowada: Dead

It had ended in less than a minute. Then it was silent seeing as any attempts at speaking were pulled in by Sakura’s disbelief like a black hole.

"No…" was all she said after an age, "no… My hands have killed. We were taken by the despair around us—"

Footsteps across the bridge to the main gate. The image of Izuru sprinting into the Imperial Palace reflected in Chihiro's glazed eyes,and then the corpse was pulled under the freezing water as if it were never there. The two fresher ones lay collapsed side by side.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The Earth quaked under Sakura’s roar of pain. She already was close to Izuru, running at great strides as if to escape the devastation she had caused.

It was silent but for a ringing in Kirigiri's ears. The world around them had also fallen very still. Oowada and Yamada— they both had been so spirited. They looked like they could have gotten up and started walking again at any moment, but they never would. Whatever made people be people had fled and left an empty case. It made her think of sand pouring out of a broken hourglass.

“We can’t just leave them there!”

Maizono shook her from her thoughts. She had been far away, looking at… something, something far away. Even further than that was the existence she thought she once had before this all had begun. **  
**

There was no time for grief. Now when the other girl spoke, the calm in her words was like glue—it seemed to be the only thing holding her together.

—-

_Hello, Kirigiri-san! Can I help you?_

_…_

_Oh! You want to look at the information that was collected?_

_You’re typing so quickly, Kirigiri-san._

_What happened to my creator, Chihiro Fujisaki? … You cannot input that information? I understand… I shall bring up the records for Makoto Naegi- oh! There are so many. Especially in recordings of some type of—_

_Pardon me?_

_I do not know which one is ‘most important’. That hasn’t been entered into me. I am sorry. I can show you the first one, if you would like._

_Thank you, Kirigiri-san. You are as well._

_…_

_[facial display: naegi_makoto]_

_“‘Naegi’, he always just called me. All the memories are pretty fuzzy. Ah, how horrible it was! I recall all of you individually treating me awfully but you, Kyouko!”_

_…_

_"You don’t remember, Kyouko, but Hope’s Peak Academy began accepting more and more students. They ranked me among the lower ones… no, lower than that. I was worth nothing. I had tried to act positive, even if already lower than the trash, when Jin Kirigiri--damn him--approached me!”_

_At this point, I had used your voice to inquire further about the meeting._

_“Oh, he told me he was getting rid of me. And he… he… I can’t remember fully what he did, but I can remember the world he introduced me to. My mother, my father… the pets we had owned, the times we had shared… All of them, dead. Everything had been torn into equally, the furniture and… oh, and the principal had gloated. Who would believe a trash student like me? And my sister was there, crying in the middle of the mess. And she looked up at me and said… ‘I thought you had died also!’ But she seemed… disappointed.”_

_[facial display: fujisaki_chihiro]_

_I am not perfect with registering emotions, but at that point, I had to cut the questioning short. I had figured you would have been overloaded with negative emotions at his recollection. He spoke as if he were in tremendous pain, but in an honest way. Should he have been lying, it seems highly probable he did not know that he had been lying, himself._

—-

The Tokyo Imperial Palace was all the dreams she couldn’t grasp and all the words she couldn’t muster.

Even walking across the bridge that the others had haphazardly crossed just moments ago was surreal. Each step rang across the moat, the cold winter air. Every breath she took seemed as chilling and fresh as if the palace had been preserved in ice and only thawed recently.

But what really got her was how alone she was. Chōwaden Reception Hall may have been the largest building on the palace grounds, but it didn’t feel even close to it with the emptiness of the inner plaza. If Kirigiri didn’t know any better, she’d think she was the last person alive.

Through the inner gate that was generally closed to the public--torn wide open--specks of life in the form of cherry blossom trees stood in contrast to the rest of the world’s desolation. It was as if she found a pocket of air after battling for survival underwater. There was no blood, no death, no pain; despair had come close only to be stopped in its tracks. Kirigiri strolled through the area, feeling numb, like she’d been given a vaccine.

“Kyouko!”

The slightest noise beside the ruffle of her own clothes made her skin crawl. A skipping sound--Maizono, definitely--and sets of clumsier treading behind her. She still instinctively tightened her arms around the case in her arms.

“We, um… we gave Oowada-kun and Yamada-kun a proper place to rest, but.” Another female voice that dropped its attempted cheerfulness far too easily for the circumstances--Asahina, she knew without turning. “No sign at all of Fujisaki-kun.”

“Yeah! But at least his program made it, ‘right?”

Kirigiri found her attention fixed on the bulletproof glass, behind which the Imperial Family would greet the throng of visitors. The keyword was would; it had been emptied just as much as the rest of the world.

Still, something about it—

“Kyouko, talk to me!”

Maizono sprang into her field of vision ahead of the reception hall. “Come on, relax,” she said, tone urgent. “We’re safe here.”

“Izuru Kamukura is loose and we had more deaths due to despair.”

The idol winced at the last word, and Kirigiri almost didn’t notice. “When the groups that split up find him, it will all be fine. Let’s just try and unwind. There are so many things here that almost nobody in Japan has ever seen, things we have to see!”

They walked. The paths might’ve held hundreds of families on the Emperor’s birthday, children tugging at their parents’ sleeves as snowflakes or leaves or something of the sort fell around them, like in a manga. There were no such dreams now.

There was not even room to imagine.

“I never thought I’d escape from the garbage pit, actually.”

The words stirred Kirigiri from her thoughts. “Come again?”

“In a way, I still feel as if I’m there. It’s this feeling of deep hopelessness that can’t be escaped from. In time… your mind tricks itself into believing you belong there.”

“You have me.”

Just some time ago, she’d said the words in disbelief— almost irritation. Now she felt… she didn’t know how she felt. She could investigate almost anything that wasn’t on the inside. The guilt remained as if something wasn’t quite right, but there was also a latent relief. There would be no more suspicion now.

“I suppose I do.” Maizono smiled.

The rest of the walk was quiet, almost peaceful. Then they arrived at the East Garden. She couldn’t describe it, in the same sense that she’d only capture the sketch of the painting stretching before her. The grass somehow had stayed green. The leaves rustled in the cooling breeze. The water was clear enough to show her how much of a mess she was.

“There’s something I have to tell you.”

“Go on, then.”

The emotion Maizono struggled with seemed genuine, but the way her tone fluctuated made it seem almost as if it shouldn’t be. All this, Kirigiri had trained herself to deduce at a glance--or maybe she just had figured the other girl out--and she couldn’t examine herself.

“I… I am not worth your trust.”

She’s right. No, she’s wrong. Right. Wrong.

“Why do you say this?”

“Well, um…” Maizono faltered. “She always loved you.”

Who? What? Why?

“Who always loved me?”

“It was sometime after you two first met. I mean truly first met,” Maizono said, “not after the mutual killing began. Your father, to his credit, kept it a secret, if only to not ruin the credibility of his school. But upon finding out, he said—”

Something clicked in her memory and it fired like a bullet. A barrier cracked; a door opened; she heard the words in her father’s voice, “No daughter of mine is going to fall in love with another woman…”

“‘… and fill me with shame,' he said.” Maizono finished her best impression of the man, which came out surprisingly accurate. It lined up exactly with what Kirigiri remembered. “That’s what happened.”

“I… I don’t understand.” Not a lie. She didn’t understand; ever since this whole incident began, she couldn’t understand anything. Every answer turned out to be another question.

“I feel soon, you might.”

Before she was given time to continue the conversation, there came a great creak of mechanisms coming to life.

“Attention, Attention! Is this thing on…?”

The voice came projected over a great distance--the palace’s entirety--and echoed. “Great! You bastards are all cordially invited back to the Chōwaden Reception Hall for a class reunion!! Didja punks think y’could get rid of me that easily? I’m your headmaster! Anyone who’s late is getting a special punishment! Upupu… good luck!”

It vanished with a click. Neither of them betrayed the slightest sense of disbelief.

“Do we—”

“We have no choice but to meet his demands. Apparently whoever is masterminding the game has infiltrated the last place of hope we had.”

“You make it sound hopeless, Kyouko.”

She choked down a growing dread. “No. A game can be won. If we accept despair for what it is, how could we win hope? You came back, didn’t you?”

Maizono averted her eyes. “Yes, I did.”

“Then let us win this… together.”

“Together.”

They had held hands on the way back.

—-

Monobear stood behind the bulletproof glass, both where the Imperial Family would have stood and where Kirigiri suspected. Two things had most certainly come to light.

The first: there was much more to her father than she remembered. She couldn’t believe that he was an evil man, though. Simply out for the family’s best interests. But then Naegi’s words…

Naegi…

The second: Naegi was alive. There was no other explanation for Monobear; when they took apart a unit, they found it was controlled remotely, not autonomously.

Sakura was the last to arrive— empty-handed, jaw clenched tightly shut. Their numbers had thinned so greatly. It seemed not so long ago that double this number had stood in the school’s gymnasium while Monobear announced a game just like this.

“Upupupu… I thought I was gonna have to penalize ya, Oogami-san!” Monobear said. “Uu… the despair of punishment…”

“Feh. Hurry up before I change my mind. Nobody’s shouting ‘banzai’ to see your wretched little face.”

“That’s a no-no, Togami-kun! All the exits have been sealed, the bridges secured like in wartime! If any of you kids wanna try and leave to prove my point, be my guest, even if you’re gettin’ blown to bits!”

Nobody moved.

“That’s what I thought! Now…”

Monobear raised his fist and threw all his weight forward. A single crack appeared at first, one that shouldn’t be there under any circumstances, then it spread slowly and purposefully as if alive— shards, it rained glass shards everywhere but fortunately it wasn’t entirely on them. Over it, she heard him laughing.

“Surprise, bastards! I’m not a bear for uneventful finales, am I?!”

When Kirigiri afforded to look up, he’d pushed aside everything but the cameras. Several of them, unmanned but watching intently with their focused eyes, pointed directly at them. Monobear hopped in front of one.

“Live from Kōkyo! Our worldwide finale to the greatest reality show to ever be aired!! Ahahahaha!”

“Stop playing and answer us! What the devil are you doing?!”

Monobear swiveled. “Upupu… someone’s eager! S’about time you finally figured it out! The killings, the trials, the days of starvation and anger, the executions, your despair… all of it’s been broadcast so everyone can see the flickering out of ‘the world’s hope’!” He turned to the camera again, extending his claws. “This one is mandatory viewing, you got that?! I don’t care what the policy was before! Kamukura-kun is out there and can visit your houses easier than any ‘Santa Claus’!”

“Naegi doesn’t seem like he would have done this,” Kirigiri said under her breath. “So many of his plans don’t add up with his viewpoints, in fact—”

_"I’m not the sole person in charge."_

His statement still didn’t add up to her, but it was the only possibility. He wasn’t lying. Naegi died, she witnessed that with her own eyes. This was the second round.

“What are the rules of your finale?” she called out.

“It’s simple! None of you kids know the whole truth, do you? Locked here on imperial grounds, you’re to investigate all the questions you never had answered—” he paused to giggle, then reached back, then threw a portrait down. It landed by Kirigiri’s feet; she recognized the face even behind the bloodied X.

“— and the truth behind the death of Makoto Naegi! If none of you properly answer these questions, all of you face your individual executions at once, and it’s a victory for Despair!”

“We will not be fooled by common criminals like yourselves! I indict Kamukura-kun of the crime!”

“Save it for the Class Trial, muscles! It’s gonna be held here at the Imperial Palace— at a courtroom worthy of the greatest finale to mankind and its hope that has ever been seen!”

“No. You’re wrong.”

Monobear’s moment of surprise was enough to buy Kirigiri the chance to continue. “There is no such true thing as ‘despair’, only a lack of hope, just as there’s no darkness but an absence of light.”

She first took Maizono’s hand again, warm against her own, and it took little prompting to hold Sakura’s as well. “We will win this ‘game’ of yours and prove to the world that hope cannot be extinguished by despair! We owe it to the lost lives of our own class at your hands!”

Even Celes, Togami— all of them had joined hands, looking up not at Monobear, but something else. The clouds had parted. No matter the situation outside, the sun always shined down.

“Sakura-chan…” Asahina said. “We made it out of there together, and we’re gonna make it out of this together! I can feel it!”

“I swore to protect you then, Asahina, and I shall protect you now. We will end the shadow that has been cast over the world and start anew.”

“Anew… I like the sound of that. The world may be filled with commoners and ordinary things as always, but it’s still my duty as a Togami to end this game and end your life by my own hand.”

“And then the world will rise to greater glory than it had before, correct?” Celes added. “I adore the sound of that idea. What is a game without the proper stakes? Our lives versus that of the ‘other’ mastermind and the head of despair as it rears itself.”

“I see it now, ‘right? A brighter future for everyone…! I think there’s much more than a 30% chance that this prediction is coming to light!”

“I… I didn’t succumb to you once, and I will not begin now, with Byakuya-sama at my side! No matter what our inner demons, w-we will not stay on the run forever!”

“No…”

Monobear’s voice wasn’t his own as he choked out the word. It seemed a few marks short of a bullseye, but Kirgiri couldn’t place it. “No… you… you bastards! All of you are going to pay for this at the class trial!”

“That remains to be determined,” Maizono said, squeezing Kirigiri’s hand. “I can foresee your own defeat in front of the world’s eye.”

“You… even you!” Monobear’s fury succumbed to something in his voice— something that his robotic emotion couldn’t portray. “Aaah… So this is how it feels…” His voice clashed with his then-stoic face. “Th-the terms for our game our set, upupupu… L-let us begin… now!”

At the last word, he backed away from the glass shards, the cameras, the crowd in general and vanished into another room. The students didn’t break their grasp on one another for several minutes.

“Kyouko… now what do we do?” Maizono asked.

Oddly, when she least expected it, a smile crossed her face. “It’s simple. I feel it in my veins, hear it in my ears. The end of it all. The last investigation has begun.”

—-


	4. The Final Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr link: http://264feet.tumblr.com/post/76795257362/bring-the-world-down-iv-mm-naegi

Based on the looks of the place, it had last been used either a day ago by a messy person or a year ago by very neat people in the middle of an apocalypse. The walls also seemed to close in on the duo. (At least they were a 'duo' in Fukawa's mind; she just followed Togami when the rest split up.)

“It began and ended with the ambassador.” Togami strode through the makeshift archive, Fukawa at his heels.

“Wh-what do you mean, Byakuya-sama?”

“I mean that his murder is the last thingrecorded here, after a last-minute meeting. His name was Steichen, hailing from Novoselic.”

Fukawa stopped breathing for the faintest of moments. She felt as though her blood had curdled.

“A proud young man, he likely was here to talk about the damage caused by Naegi’s little group. He could have done something should he have not been killed on the eve of his visit,” Togami said, irritation in his voice. “The case wasn't really looked into for reasons unknown. Probably due to evacuation. However,  _my_ belief-" he pushed up his glasses, "-is that the state of his crime scene matched every other by the serial killer, Genocider Syo.”

“G-Genoc—”

“Don’t pollute the air with more of your stupid words.” **  
**

She didn’t.

“This was the last murder he committed,” Togami said. “Again, his victim was male. I believe I understand why.”

Fukawa almost asked for his theory, then stopped. She attempted to calm herself by glancing about the room. The slapdash archive was dusty, haunted by ghosts of officials who never made it out. Yet there was a sense of it having been recently used. She had no idea who could have done so.

“It seems likely to me that Syo might have been working for Naegi.”

“I- I don’t think th-that’s it.” Her own voice surprises her as well. It’s almost as involuntary as… as…

“Did I give you permission to speak?” he was saying. “You’re a nuisance. Someone like you would’ve been best used as bait for Kamukura.”

“Th-this is important!” She curled her fingers as if trying to drag her courage out of her. “Genocider Syo never worked for anyone! Sh- Syo is a killer, not an assassin!”  **  
**

“Bah. You have no authority on that.”

“B-but what about you?”

“I am Byakuya Togami.”

No other explanation came. He turned back to the records.

“ _I am Genocider Syo,”_  she wanted to reply, but that wasn’t true. She wasn’t Syo; that demon just lived inside of her. Fukawa never knew if she could be in any kind of healthy relationship— if she deserved one. Togami was… well, Togami, but what about the day when he finally figured her out?

“Hmph. There’s nothing here on the Naegi family.”

She bit her fingernails. “M-maybe they didn’t know it was—”

“Perhaps they were silenced.”

“S-silenced?”

“Think, Fukawa. Who would use this area after the Imperial Family and company evacuated? Only Super High School Level Despair,” he said. “It’s likely they left behind proof of their time here as well. They wouldn’t make it so easy, however, that we’d find all the information on Naegi we wanted.”

“They… they could be here?!”

“We won’t know until we look.”

Before she could stop him, he threw open one of the unlocked doors.

It was so casual— rather than a portrait, historical paintings, or the like, the back wall of the conference room was adorned with scissors and the words ‘BLOODBATH FEVER’.

Fukawa only remembered the sensation of her scissors’ cold metal against her hand. The rush of blood draining from her form. The world slowly going black.

—-

“Naegi-chi?” _-chi? chi? -i?_

It bounced like a phantom on the tiles of the music hall’s eight walls. The original cry was the only answer.

Hagakure pivoted on his heel. “I- I dunno about this place, guys. A-Asahina-chi, Celes-chi, we gotta get out of here now!”

“Please.” With just a flick of the metal claw, Celes forced him to halt. “We’ve come up with nothing during our entire search of the East Garden. Tōkagakudō is our last chance before the trial starts, is it not?”

“Well… well yeah, but—”

“Excellent.” She extended an arm past him at the blackness inside. “I rest the investigation in your capable hands, Asahina-san. And… you.”

“The least you could do is help us!” Asahina pouted. “You’ve just been bossing us around!”

“Oh, is that so? I extend my sincerest apologies,” she said, covering her smile with a white hand. “I will guard this entryway from Kamukura-kun. It’s much safer in here since we know this is where he is not, no?”

“Yeah! Celes-chi’s got that right!”

“He’s much more likely to be slicing a few new holes in Oogami-san. All the safer for us here.”

“You— you insufferable bi-”

The rest of the word stopped as suddenly as Hagakure had once the lights flickered on. The stage drew their eyes in, one by one. A corpse, then two, then the third and fourth fell from the ceiling at once. They landed on the stage with a loud bang just as the doors slammed shut.

“H-hiyaaaaaaah! Spirits! Sp-spare me!”

“Silence yourself, you buffoon! Did you even see the body that fell? It was—”

“—Naegi-kun!?” Asahina concluded, already halfway up the stage.

“Asahina-chi! Don’t do it!”

“No, look!” She hopped up the last of the steps, kneeling in close to one of the figures. “They’re not real corpses, but… replications?”

“Dummies.”

Celes strolled up to join Asahina, leaving Hagakure wondering which meaning of the word she'd meant.

“H-hey! Wait up, ‘right?!”

“They have no faces, but this looks like Naegi with two older people and someone else.”

“How do you know the other three don’t have faces? They’ve fallen on their stomachs.”

Asahina almost touched one— almost, then stopped in fear it might move. “It just seems like it would be consistent that way.”

“So this is Naegi-chi and his mom and pop, ‘right? Lemme guess, that’s his girlfriend?”

“They all look similar enough to be kin. I expect that’s his sister.” Celes scowled at Hagakure’s ‘close enough’ look.  **  
**

Asahina slowly stood back to her full height. Now that she thought of it, the dummies all looked incredibly ordinary; hell, even the stage was so ordinary it became conspicuous. “Is this supposed to replicate a crime scene or something? I mean, it’s sort of decked out like a living room. Maybe something happened to Naegi-kun’s family…?”

“Maybe… oh!” Hagakure spotted something red on the carpet and lifted a throw rug, revealing it was only the corner of a much larger splatter. “This is supposed to be the ‘blood’, then!”

“I don’t think these circles were part of the living room, though… and with these squares inside them?”

“I… I get it! Asahina-chi, Celes-chi, I get it!”

“You get it.”

“These circle things they fell into look like traditional I Ching coins! Y’know, for fortune telling, ‘right?” Hagakure said. “Lemme see… Naegi-chi and his parents are face down, so I’m gonna count it as ‘tails’. Only his girlf- sister is facing up, so she’s ‘heads’.”

“What does that mean, Hagakure-kun?” Asahina asked, while the other girl rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’s a sum of one at only one coin flip. I think that’s… um… yang changing unto yin, ‘right!” He put his hands to his hips and gave a hearty laugh. “That’s good! The heavens blessing us with good fortune!”

“Unless you are reading it completely incorrectly.”

“Yeah, Celes-chi?! What interpretation would you use?”

“Perhaps… they’re—”

She almost concluded the sentence before it struck. A thin line of real blood drew from her ankle under the sister dummy’s splintered grip before it shot its face up to meet Celes’s.

“Th-the evil spirits! They’re real!” Hagakure screeched as the Makoto figure took him also. “A-Asahina-chi! Celes-chi!” He wanted to shout for help, shout until someone from outside heard them, but it covered his mouth.

The last thing he thought they’d ever see was the all-encompassing darkness when the lights shut off.

—-

The Museum of the Imperial Collections proved both beautiful and unfruitful.  On another day, Kirigiri might have enjoyed staying for the artwork—for Maizono—but this was an Easter egg hunt and Naegi had left nothing inside.  **  
**

Maizono's hand twitched, sliding over thin air like the barrel of a gun.  “Where do we look now, Kyouko?”

“We don’t.”

Another twitch. “Huh?”

“The only other place that truly strikes me would be the Drawing Room, or the personal office of the Emperor. I am almost certain that is where the Mastermind is currently residing, hence our inability to search there.”

“We can’t give up looking!”

“Our greatest clue is currently with us anyway,” Kirigiri said. The laptop felt heavier than it should in her arms. “Alter Ego. We haven’t gotten all the information we could from it.”

All Maizono had to do was wait for her to open the laptop, when she'd be distracted. She raised her fist; it hovered over Kirigiri’s neck. Trembling.

She could kill her, here and now.

How would Naegi feel— how would Naegi have felt?What should she do? Maizono felt distanced from every moment she’d spent here, from the night she departed with Izuru to the sunrise.

Bodies were just constructs, complex jackets sewn out of veins and flesh. Killing a person was no different from tearing an outfit to her. She just had to make the first cut.

“Is the world hopeless, Kyouko?”

The words were not her own, nor Kirigiri's, but Makoto Naegi's. At the familiar voice, Maizono flinched. Kirigiri had booted the AI during her deliberation, launching one of the simulated conversations. The hand was still poised.  **  
**

“I do not believe so.”

“Then does everyone deserve it? To live?”

“… Yes. Even you. You cannot just give up.”

“I want to give up. I am ready to die.”

“Naegi—”

“I told you. Hope inevitably tears people to shreds inside. It is a beautiful concept on paper, to believe that people will always help each other in times of need. I’ve seen that this isn’t true.”

“You’ve also lived to see that it is.”

Maizono felt for a weapon. No— none left. She couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t she do it?

“I have nothing.”

The statement caught her attention. Naegi had continued: “You understand? I’m worth nothing.”

“You can’t expect me to sympathize with you after all you’ve done.”

“So you agree?”

“… I do not.”

“You just want to hear what I have to say.”

“Perhaps.”

She wouldn’t need one. Her fist tightened, teeth clenched tightly together. How could Kirigiri have been so heartless? How could she have— and there she was, engrossed in the recording.

“You will tell us what happened,” Kirigiri had said. “What motivated you?”

“… Despair. Despair motivated me.”

Despair. Despair was her original mission. If there was nothing to remain, there was nothing to regret. She had to put herself aside now and kill Kyouko Kirigiri.

A quick strike was all it would take—

“ _I can’t give that up! I’m going to believe in you until the end, Kiri- no… Kyouko.”_ That's what Maizono had said, all that time ago, behind the flickering of the CCTV screen.

Until the end! Until the very end, she thought! What a laugh. The only people who stay together until the end die by the same hand.  **  
**

Now on the recording, Naegi and Kirigiri’s conversation whittled away into nothing again. The detective clicked to open another file.

“I remember that Jin Kirigiri called me into his office,” the recording of Naegi began.

Maizono took aim for the right point. Her hand hesitated. No. Her hand couldn’t hesitate. She jabbed forward.

It stopped just before touching Kirigiri’s skin. She remembered the shock when no contact came, when the grip tightened around her wrist.

“Stop,” Izuru said, a whisper too low for Kirigiri to hear.

“And he told me that he needed a favor. From me. Me!” continued Alter Ego’s message.

Maizono turned her head with great difficulty. “Wh-what do you mean?” she choked out. Her voice was hoarse.

“Naegi-san wouldn’t want that.” 

“But Naegi…”

“Not now.”

Maizono turned to look at Kirigiri again. She was so absorbed in the past that she didn't hear the ghosts of voices behind her. It would be so, so easy to kill her--

“IIIIZZZUUUURRRRUUUUU KAAAAMMUUUUUKUUUURRRRAAAAAA!”

Sakura’s explosion of fury was enough to draw all of their attention. Despite her size, she moved like a bullet; the air parted around her kick.

“He told me it was a request he agreed t—”

The bench split into boards under her strength. And the laptop— that thing perched upon the wood smashed into an unrecognizable shape. She saw that flash of fear on Fujisaki’s face again before the screen shattered.

Izuru stood close enough to be grabbed, close enough to be killed in a fury, allowing him to take Maizono hostage.

“Don’t move. Don’t take another step or you'll kill her too. You’re unable to control your strength, Oogami-san. You destroyed Kirigiri-san’s only hope. Isn’t that despairing?”

Maizono’s face was startlingly blank for someone being held by a ruthless killer, but Sakura had drained of all emotion. It wasn’t like she was unhappy— everything seemed to be torn from her as it dawned on her what she had done. Her body went rigid. Her eyes unfocused. She looked like one of the deceased they had seen just hours earlier.

“No,” she said. “No…”

“You’re a hindrance to your friends. It’s pathetic. Stay away from Asahina-san before you ruin her life, like you did Oowada-san’s.”

“Maiz— no, I mean, Sayaka,” Kirigiri managed, but Maizono had gone blank as well. It was something she tried again to identify. It was an absence of all life, the difference between hatred and apathy. Hatred was what Sakura had for a murderer; that was a strong emotion. Apathy was nothing. Apathy was the opposite of love and Despair was the inability to feel again.

“I’m… sorry, Kyouko.”

That was what they felt. They felt like Naegi must have, that their lives were worth nothing. Less than nothing. She couldn’t let them believe that audacious lie.

“Oogami-san,” Kirigiri said, tone urgent, “you can still catch him without hurting Sayaka. We can—”

“It is impossible.”

Her shoulders slumped, gradually first, then all at once like a toy out of battery power. “I am a monster. Uncontrollable. This was not what I had wanted.”

“Kyouko. It’s time to give up.”

“Sayaka, no—”

“Having ‘hope’ isn’t believing and believing until you die. That’s despair by another name,” she said. “You were tactical as a detective. You knew when to give up because a mission was hopeless.”  **  
**

“Then the reverse is also true. I know when a mission isn’t hopeless.” **  
**

“Can you say that is true? Or can you admit you were made to think that?” Maizono said. “It’s like how they paint a perfect image for an idol. Someone has done that for you as well. You just haven’t met him yet.”

“Or maybe he’s already deceased,” Izuru said. “Something I have learned in my line of work is that the dead speak louder than the living.”

And, slowly, purposefully, Izuru and Maizono backed away. There came no resistance, no chase. All that remained was Kirigiri, Sakura, and nothingness.

\----

The elevator ride was startlingly as familiar as it was quiet. A courtroom built under Kyuden Plaza seemed fitting enough, but the Mastermind took steps to add their dead classmates’ portraits and a large screen. When Kirigiri looked up, she saw herself over a subtitle: LIVE from Tokyo Imperial Palace!  **  
**

The survivors had all gathered— even Izuru, even Maizono. Monobear took the last available spot.

“Ahem… welcome to the last and quickest Class Trial! First thing’s first…” The bear showed he held nothing in his paws. “There’s no escape switch, or else you punks could just wrestle it from me! This courtroom operates on a heartbeat detection system, n’ it only opens when… well. Upupuupu… I guess yer gonna find out with what you guys saw n’ found, is it?”

“I… yes,” Togami said. “I concede.”

Kirigiri frowned. “Concede?”

“N-no, I- I- I give up too,” Hagakure said. “There’s no reason to go on, ‘right? The world doesn’t have a future.”

“A monster akin to myself has no voice in this discussion. We must know when to lay own our weapons.”

“Th-there’s n-no hope left…”

“Everyone, no.” Kirigiri said. Her own voice held little weight; the others knew it. “We cannot quit when we’re so close to the truth.”

“There’s no truth, Kirigiri-san.”

It didn’t seem like it would be convincing coming from a murderer like Izuru, but if she thought that way, could she trust Sakura? After all, she'd accidentally killed. Was the difference in the circumstances linked to intention, or had they all been chosen to act and appear in a certain way from the start?

Kirigiri stayed quiet. So Izuru continued **:**  “There are many things that resemble it. Hope was the truth for Makoto Naegi-san. Despair is the truth now for your friends. Once you understand that, finding it becomes so much easier.”

“I’ve uncovered many truths in my time as a detective. There were many absolutes.”

“Yes, but what runs below the absolutes? You may uncover that a certain person committed murder, but did you always know why?” Izuru paused only once, casting a glance at Maizono. “Your friend here wanted to kill Leon Kuwata. That was the truth you uncovered. The next one was that Maizono had nothing to live for but you, and the following one was that she died because of you.”

“How did you-”

“Are these things all correct, or have you replaced one truth with another that better suits you?” Izuru demanded. “In that case, how do you know that what you refuse to accept now isn’t simply an ultimatum--that even Hagakure-san understood before you--rather than only one side you see?”

“There are facts and then there are feelings. That Sayaka Maizono had intent to kill Leon Kuwata is a fact. That I felt a deep guilt over her death is a feeling.”  **  
**

“True, but which was more powerful?” Izuru asked. “Don’t say the latter. Lying doesn’t suit you.”

“No matter the power of them, concentrating on the facts leads to a better conclusion than feelings alone,” Kirigiri said. “The belief that there is only despair goes against the facts we have gathered.”

“Differentiating the two can be the most difficult part, Kirigiri-san. As I mentioned, despite what you uncovered during the first trial, you still trusted Maizono-san. Whatever clues you may have found don’t add up to the ones everyone else has. Isn’t that right?”

“… Ambassador Steichen wasn’t killed by an assassination attempt or any organized crime,” Togami said. “Coming from Novoselic to negotiate peace to the mindless wars, he was murdered in the most brutal way possible. After he was murdered, his body was torn apart. It’s because people didn’t want an end to the wars, Kirigiri. Even if a ‘win’ is secured here, what does it mean? Nothing. We can be torn to shreds at any moment.”  **  
**

“I’m one of the people who caused such despair.” Sakura's gaze dropped to her feet, refusing to even look at Asahina, as if she might accidentally hurt her. “I have killed and therefore failed as a leader. I will not allow any of us to be hurt again.”

“Y-yeah, and… Naegi-chi had it right. Hope tears people down when it’s wrong. It’s easier to just accept it, Kiri-chi, not battle until we end up like him!”

“Look, Kirigiri-san,” Izuru said steadily. “Even I understood this from the moment it begun. Should we all concede, should I end up dying, I’ve been prepared to cease to exist. Now I can be wiped off the map at any time.”

“You… you’re wrong. You could’ve failed to have gotten into the Academy or fallen prey to the fire or failed to start infighting among us or been captured by Oogami-san. There were many chances in which you chose life. That alone speaks volumes.”

“That doesn’t mean a thing. It’s simply a fact that I am to end up dying here for Despair. If I weren’t willing to lay down my life for Naegi-san, I would have thrown it away earlier.”

“I… I…”

“Upupupu! I think ‘Kyouko-chan’ is finally startin’ to get it!” Monobear said. “And with that, ladies and gents, I think we’re ready to start a vote! A majority vote between Hope and Despair!”

“Wait. It can’t end here—”

“Kirigiri, stop. It’s over.”

“It’s not over. Part of the trial was to uncover how Makoto Naegi died. If we do that, we…”

“G-get what, K-Kirigiri?!” Fukawa asked. “More of your babbling?!”

“I think we oughta start the vote, ‘right?”

“Yes. Let us hold aloft our votes. We will not be threatened by my strength any longer.”

“Pl… Please wait!”

She didn’t expect it from Maizono. Hell, it looked like Maizono didn’t expect it from Maizono. And after Izuru’s breakdown of her thoughts on the idol, Kirigiriwasn’t sure how to feel, but her heart swelled. Slightly, but it was still something. **  
**

“I believe we should examine the truth behind Naegi-kun’s death,” Maizono continued. “It was in Monobear’s terms. He doesn’t want to appear unfair in front of the audience, does he?”

Kirigiri could practically hear the audience's voices, and apparently he could as well.Finally, he broke down. “Aw, fine! But this is Kirigiri-san’s one and only chance!” Monobear said. “Kyouko Kirigiri! Who killed Makoto Naegi?”

“I… I believe it was—”

“Or maybe he’s already deceased,” she remembered Izuru had said. “Something I have learned in my line of work is that the dead speak louder than the living.”

“I indict Naegi.”

“Kirigiri. You realize what you are saying.”

“Yes. Despite the wound he had already acquired, he walked into the fire. That was what ended his life, which is what we were looking for.”

“Upupupu! I see! Well, Kirigiri-san, it looks like the conclusion you have come to…” he pretended to stifle another giggle, then spread his arms widely. “Is wrong! Wrong wrong wrong wrong!”

Thank you, Sayaka, she thought. Thank you for buying me a chance. I apologize for wasting it.

“Come on, I thought a kid like you could do better than that! Y’know that there are so many things left! Like who arranged for the fire to be started! How’d he get stabbed to begin with? Can you answer these things?”

“I—”

can’t

“—can,” came the conclusion. Kirigiri hadn’t spoken. When she looked up, it was Asahina, a defiant look on her face. “This whole thing is unfair! We have no one to suspect but you, Mastermind, but you wouldn’t take that as an answer either! Kamukura said he’s only just working for someone anyway, so it isn’t him!”  **  
**

“The evidence we’ve gathered doesn’t make him seem especially likely,” Maizono said, referencing their conversation regarding the ‘Monobear File’.

“Asahina, please do not—”

“No! Sakura-chan, you aren’t a monster! The monster here is the one who makes innocent people believe they are! I— I believe in you! I always will believe in you, Sakura-chan, ‘cause you believed in me!”

“You… you would still believe in me, even after all I have done?”

“Of course I would! That’s what friends do! And… and you and I are more than just friends, Sakura-chan.”  **  
**

“A-Asahina…” It was a side of the fighter that Kirigiri hadn’t seen, or so she thought when the first tear rolled down her cheek. Crying wasn’t a sign of weakness. Allowing it seemed to be a sign of strength. “I should not have doubted myself and pulled you into to the blackness of despair as a result.”

Asahina bounded across the courtroom, regardless of the rules or who was watching, and sprang into Sakura’s arms. She held tightly as if glad she was back and unwilling to part with her again.

“That’s the Sakura-chan I know.”

“Thank you, Asahina… I—” A smile, sincere one, as ifshe was Maizono. “I love you.”

It seemed to awaken them like a bright sunrise in the morning. Hagakure’s smile, Fukawa’s smile— Fukawa’s was as rare as Mukuro’s was, and Kirigiri would have been right to say it was just as beautiful **  
**

“I- I love you too, Sakura-chan. So much.”

“ _And she loved you,”_  rang Maizono’s voice from earlier in her head. There were still questions, so many unanswered questions, but it seemed to be of some comfort. And it seemed they now had the ability to search for the answers.

“Monobear,” Togami called, “we’re cancelling the vote.”

“Wh-what?! How can you… how can you bastards—”

“Please. It’s not in a Togami’s name to quit,” he said. “It may be a skill to understand when a situation is hopeless, but it’s a greater skill to understand when it is time to strike.”

“And that time has arrived, so it seems,” Celes said. “It’s rather like a game. You don’t play all your cards in on the first round.”

“Monobear. I stand by my accusation of Naegi. We are going to discuss this, no matter how you feel about the outcome.”

All the other students looked like they’d been pulled back from the dead. Now the trial would truly begin, she thought. Kirigiri tried to organize the facts in her mind. The fire. The knife. The reappearance.

“We still believe it’s Naegi-chi, ‘right?”

“That is the only conclusion that can be drawn.”

“B-but even he couldn’t have… released himself from his ropes…”

“He didn’t have to, if he was aware of what was going to happen,” Kirigiri said. “That also helps explain his acceptance of the situation.”

“Naegi was isolated from the outside world. There was no way for him to have been informed,” Izuru said.

“You have that wrong.”

The look he shot at Maizono was betrayed, almost unmistakably so. Kirigiri had no time to muse on why.

“Recall how Oowada-kun reacted when you threatened to reveal even the tiniest bit of information?” Maizono said. “Does that not imply he might have had something to hide?”

“Maizono, do you really think he was a member of Despair?”

“His interactions with Izuru Kamukura place further suspicion on him,” Kirigiri said. “Consider that Naegi was unwilling to accept his loss after the second trial. Why would he be so willing to accept his death--especially if I wasn’t the one killing him like he wanted--unless he was aware it would happen?”

“You are suggesting that Oowada-kun was an informant on the inside?”

“I believe it’s so. This proves my theory.”

“Upupupu! Kirigiri-san, I’m afraid that’s wrong as well!”

“Explain your reasoning.”

“Even if he wanted to inform one of us, he didn’t have any means to do so anymore! You remember that all lines of communication had gone down, don’tcha?”

“I believe…” Kirigiri paused. “The previous means of communication may have been null, but new ones arose. Oowada-kun was largely kind to Fujisaki-kun after our escape from the Academy. Incidentally, Fujisaki-kun said he was working on a way of communicating with other survivors alongside Alter Ego.”

“Oh, really?” Monobear said, chuckling again. “Why don’tcha prove that, then? Where is this magic way to communicate?”

“It’s simple!” Maizono said. “It’s with the… laptop…”

“Nyohohoho! You bastards are getting it now, don’tcha? Why don’t you ask Fujisaki-kun or Oowada-kun, huh? Why don’t we observe the laptop? You see, there’s no proof for any of this, not even a little bit! Sure, you can convince each other, but is this total bluffing gonna fly with all of our viewers?”

“I—”

“BZZT! The answer is no! Honestly, Kirigiri-san, twisting the facts like this is disgraceful to the Kirigiri name. What would your father think?” **  
**

“You bully!” Asahina shouted. “You know it’s true and you’re just covering it up!”

“I’m afraid Monobear is right. We have no absolutes.”

“Kirigiri-san…”

“That doesn’t mean I will abandon my theory. It simply means that, at this moment, it is a theory.”

“Theories aren’t enough to incriminate yer friends! Doesn’t that just infuriate you, Oogami-san? You oughta feel more respect for someone ya killed!”

“How can you say such things with a clean conscience?!” Sakura demanded.

“How can you, knowing you’re a cold-blooded murderer? Yer no better than Kamukura-kun over there!”

“Don’t listen to him, Sakura-chan!” Asahina leaned forward like she would strangle Monobear herself any moment. “He’s just trying to get you down again!”

“Pleeeaaaase. You’re giving in to Monobear’s words that easily? No wonder it was so easy to coerce you dumb bastards into killing each other,” came a statement, dripping with amusement.

That tone. That voice. That- no no no no no no nonono this isn’t happening, she insisted to herself. Kirigiri locked up like she’d been tranquilized, like her mind and body were separate units that didn’t respond even individually.

But instead of rising from the dead, the screen on the wall blacked out, and Naegi himself appeared. Only his head against a green background- Alter Ego, that’s what it was, but it had captured Naegi perfectly.

“Wh-what?!” Monobear bared his fangs in rage. “What’s going on here?!”

“Did you really think you’d dispose of me that easily?” ‘Naegi’ said, the wild look captured even in his artificial glare. “I guess that’s what happens when you get sloppy and underestimate someone! One moment you’ve brought the world down to it’s knees, the next you’ve been restrained by a group of second-rates not worth the blood flowing through them!”

“The program must have spread copies of itself like a virus to prevent its destruction,” Maizono said. “Kyouko said that Fujisaki-kun designed it to survive him.”

“Grr— That bastard! That bastard bastard bastard! How could a dead little crossdressing brat ruin so much of a plan?!”

“Your ‘plan’ was flawed to begin with, you moronic commoner. Even if you set us up to find things within this palace that would cause us to despair, we still didn’t completely succumb.”

“Stupid Naegi and his stupid emotions! Stupid stupid Fujisaki and his path—” Monobear’s voice slipped; something female, almost, “—etic- hope! Stupidstupidstupidstupid!”

“Monobear, calm yourself,” Izuru Kamukura ordered, “now.”  **  
**

“I—- right, I—”

“Regardless, the appearance of Alter Ego can tell us many things. The first is that it did have a way of wirelessly communicating, which would be necessary to appear here. The second is that Oowada-kun must have used it,” Maizono said.

“Yep, that’s in the records!” it said, plastering a smile on Naegi’s face.

“Were there any recordings that suggested Naegi knew he was going to die?”

“Oh, I-” he; the program spoke in the first person now, “- think… I knew, completely! But I never ordered myself to be killed. Oowada-kun was just the person who told me.”

“Upupupu… Aha ha ha ha ha ha! I think that means that Kirigiri-san’s claim that Naegi was the one who caused his own death is wrong!”

“… I don’t understand how that can be true,” Kirigiri said.

“It’s just what’s in the memory banks, Kyouko-chan! He told me only that someone was coming to kill me ‘cause I wasn’t needed anymore. Oowada-kun worked as an informant ‘cause of guilt. He had his arm twisted, so to speak, over the fact that he murdered his own brother!”

“Hmph. I knew he was lying when he so vehemently claimed in front of you lot that he wasn’t a killer,” Izuru said. “He took that secret to the grave.”

“B-but then, who wanted Naegi-chi dead?”

“How are we sure that Kamukura didn’t just do it of his own accord?”

“No. I don’t act on my own accord.”

“Th-that sounds really despairing…”

“Isn’t it, though, Asahina-san?” Naegi laughed, his eyes swirling with hope and despair. “You can’t even imagine what it feels like to be such a useless piece of trash! Everyone else spits on Kamukura’s pathetic life!”  **  
**

Briefly, she saw his fist clench, then release.

“Y-you think someone like him would be so… so respected and powerful,” Fukawa said.

“Super High School Level Despair had little structure to begin with. It must have been only enough to order Kamukura to kill.”  **  
**

“None of that matters, you little punks! If whoever ordered Kamukura-kun to kill wasn’t Makoto Naegi, then Kirigiri-san was wrong with her only chance!”

Her own muscles tightened.

“You’ve got that wrong.”

“It’s too late to change yer claim, Kirigiri-san!” Monobear said. “It’s on my will that we’re havin’ this trial in the first place. I only gave you that chance!”

“Yes, but…”

Naegi’s voice came into her head again; she remembered both what he and Alter Ego had said.

“ _And my sister was there, crying in the middle of the mess. And she looked up at me and said… ‘I thought you had died also!’ But she seemed… disappointed.”_

_"I’m not the sole person in charge."_

_… "I can’t remember!"_

It all played over and over again in her mind; it would stop and repeat and speed up but the memories wouldn’t be deleted. It was a wild truth. Kirigiri hated conclusions that she couldn’t tame, but often they were the only ones she encountered.

“…what if my original claim was not wrong to begin with?”

“Feh. It’s been proven wrong, Kirigiri. Don’t show him you’re desperate.”

“I’m not. Reconsider that I only indicted ‘Naegi’ in my claim,” Kirigiri said. “I never specified which Naegi.”

“No! No no no no! Shut up!”

“Monobear, I—”

“Eh?! There’s more than one of Naegi-chi? You mean like a clone?!”  **  
**

“I only mean another of the Naegi family,” she continued. “He had mentioned to me on one occasion that there was another.”

“Your reasoning doesn’t make any sense! You’ll— you’ll quit with this nonsense! I’m your Principal! I’m—”

“B-but his parents?” Fukawa asked. “W-why would they do th-this?”

“Not his parents. A sibling.”

“Kirigiri-san! KIRIGIRI!” Monobear shouted, voice cracking at the edges again. There was another voice underneath and she knew who it belonged to. “Be quiet! I’ll kill you myself!”

“You can’t hide from us,” she said evenly. Truthfully, the only weights she had behind her claim were Monobear’s hysteria and Naegi’s far-off look all that time ago. It had to be enough. “Reveal yourself to us, other Naegi sibling!”  **  
**

Alter Ego’s projection of Naegi was caught between ecstasy and unbridled confusion. It faded once, reappeared, glitched as if torn by a thousand needles, and reappeared as another face. Mukuro Ikusaba.

The knowledge must not have been in Naegi’s— Alter Ego’s memory. Chihiro couldn’t have programmed it in if he didn’t know, Kirigiri reasoned. **  
**

“It is impossible to kill an opponent who so refuses to admit to death,” ‘Mukuro’ said. “Just as you did with the death of Junko-chan, Kirigiri-san will stay alive to tear you down with the force of Naegi-kun’s ‘hope’.”

“What sort of filth-ridden person only speaks using another being’s face?” Sakura asked, tensing her muscles as if about to burst. “Cease your stalling, additional kin of the Naegi family, or I shall drag you into the light myself!”

“I can’t believe… It’s impossible—” Monobear’s operator made no effort to keep the Doraemon voice now. It was female, decidedly so, and spoke like it was unfamiliar. “— I hate you. I hate you more than stupid fucking Makoto!”

Monobear vanished, as he was so prone to during their time in the school, but replacing him came a plume of smoke. It stung Kirigiri's eyes; it filled her lungs. Smoke. Fire. God, she remembered the fire. Her chest locked up, battling her strangled lungs.

This is it, Kirigiri thought, I'm going to be killed now.

But she didn’t. She opened her eyes to find, in Monobear’s place, a girl with features like Naegi’s but none of the unruly cheer.

"Well. Congratulations, Kyouko. I couldn’t expect less from a world-class detective." She arched her neck, standing taller than Makoto Naegi ever had. “It got tiring putting up such a bombastic front as Monobear.”

She spoke with the emotion a puppeteer afforded the doll on the end of the strings.

"Naegi."

"Komaru Naegi, if you will," she said. "Younger sister in mourning of poor little Makoto."

"Y-you can’t fool us with that phony act!" Fukawa said. "She just proved you were the one who ordered him killed!"

“I’m afraid she didn’t, Touko,” Komaru said. “She only attempted to see to it that her accusation would still stand. Her accusation is still incorrect. You see…” There was a pause; she savored the pause. Most of them were too stunned to speak. “I ordered Izuru to kill Makoto by poison. Arsenic, specifically. Show them, Izuru.”

This time, the hesitation was all his. “Are you positi—”

“I insist.”

He slipped a hand into his pocket and retrieved something. The vial was so small, it almost vanished in his bony fingers. The most she saw was an old-fashioned cork plugging the top, so tightly done that it looked like it had melded with the glass. The fact that they made it here alive was an act of mercy. **  
**

“You understand now, correct? It was my order for Izuru to go and kill Makoto. Niisan, incidentally, appeared with a knife in his back. I, therefore, am ultimately not the one who led to Naegi’s death. Where did things go wrong?”

“M-maybe he changed his mind?”

“I never break promises.” The barely restrained offense in Izuru's voice couldn't be faked.

“Even if it failed, it’s important to understand she still had murderous intent of her brother,” Alter Ego said in Mukuro’s voice.

“B-but why…? Were you competing for power?”

“Need I remind you that Makoto was bound by a group of second-rate amateurs like you? In addition, we ruled together. There was no power to usurp.”

“Th-then you shouldn’t have wanted to kill him, ‘right!”

“My motive is irrelevant so long as I’m not at fault for the death of Makoto. Therefore, Kyouko is wrong.”

“A-and if she is?”

“I allowed one chance. She’ll ultimately prove to the world what a failure a ‘super high school level’ is and the trial will end.” **  
**

Just looking at her— it looked like she had to be. Komaru had to be the one who had Naegi killed, even if the plan ‘failed’. There seemed to be no remorse she had to spare.

And the thought appeared: But what if I’m wrong?

Jumping to conclusions would be her first deadly sin. How far had she strayed from her training as a detective? How could she accept these half-baked conclusions?

“It is very simple. Makoto is dead and Izuru won’t talk. There’s no way to examine the crime scene. Your case is hopeless.”

“You’re wrong,” Maizono said. Her voice was just as flat.

“Sayaka. Are you truly—”

“You didn’t send just Kamuk— just Izuru. You sent me as well.”

“Y-you’ve got that wrong!” Kirigiri’s voice came out much more shakily. “That is a clear contradiction of your earlier statement. You were in a garbage dump of some kind.”

“It’s almost funny, Kirigiri-san,” Maizono said. No more ‘Kyouko’. “You’re outwardly so suspicious and cold, but when I returned, you were willing to accept anything I said at face value. You even accepted the love of a random ‘She’ without bringing the subject up ever again.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that Naegi-san sent me alongside Izuru. The original mission was to stab Makoto Naegi and alight the school. So he… stole some gasoline around the last moment and burned down Hope’s Peak Academy.”

“Please, stop!” Kamukura reached out as if to silence her, but by covering her mouth rather than any form of violence. “You don’t have to cast suspicion on yourself! We can get away togeth—”

“I- I was the one who stabbed Makoto Naegi, as per Komaru Naegi’s instructions. I’m… I’m so sorry for lying to you,” she said, averting her eyes. “I’m sorry, Kirigiri-san. And Izuru. I’m s-sorry sorry sorry.”

Kirigiri couldn’t see her face properly, but her trembling back told she was trying not to cry. Eventually she just gave in, the tears coming in complete silence. This was how it ended, Kirigiri told herself. She could walk free. The public would accept Sayaka Maizono’s word over Despair, and they’d prove Hope.

Because it was a facade. She laughed, mentally at first, then outwardly. A facade! That’s what it was. She would self-sacrifice to spare them all.

“You’ve got that wrong!”

“Kirigiri-san, please do not put up a fight like this…”

“You never went with Kamukura. You were trapped in the school the whole time with us. Isn’t that right?” Kirigiri turned to Izuru, and only just realized how they were looking at her. She was unstable. Her mental state had become a wreck.

He seemed conflicted; like her, it was the first time he displayed feelings. Then he finally came up with the answer: “That’s correct.”

“Izuru, you’re lying to protect me!”

“So it comes down to the word of a known murderer versus a public idol turned attempted murderer,” Izuru said. “I know this is what Despair is like: emptiness, to the point that you’re already dead and killing yourself wouldn’t matter. Rotting from the inside out. Despite all I’ve been through, I want everyone to know before I’m disposed of that she is innocent. She did nothing.”

“That’s correct, and— and she was in a garbage dump. After the trial, we all thought she was murdered by Naegi, but she fell down into a garbage chute that led under the school.”

“That’s blatantly incorrect.”

Kirigiri felt so far away that she couldn’t at first recognize the voice. Male. Unrelenting. Togami— the only one not conflicted.

“Is that the bile you fell for? What kind of ‘world-class’ detective do you think you are?” he spat. “The school’s blueprints called for an area that waste could be disposed of without opening access to the outside world. It was all sealed with a locked door. It’s impossible for Maizono to have freed herself from that.”

“This is true. It’s because I freed her,” Izuru said.

“Excuse me?”

“Shut up, you worthless heir. Stop embarrassing yourself on public television. Just accept that I had a master key; I took it off of Makoto Naegi after stabbing him. That’s what I used to free her.”

“No, you have that wrong,” Celes said. “What could possibly motivate you to go so far out of your way to save someone who was truly innocent? Just accept that she’s guilty and let us go free, you goddamn idiot! He did nothing for her!”

“YOU have got that wrong!” Maizono shouted, the streams left on her face now clearly visible. “H-he did save me, once, but not on that occasion. But his real target was destroying Hope’s Peak Academy. Everyone else’s lives were irrelevant to him. I was the one who wanted to kill Makoto Naegi myself.”

“H-ha…” More of a squeak than a laugh. Komaru made all the motions but produced none of the sounds. It was like she was incapable. “This is one of the funniest things I’ve heard. World-class Detective, Kyouko Kirigiri! Watch in real-time as she chooses between her ‘facts’ and her ‘feelings’! The ultimate hope versus the ultimate despair! The only way to save herself and her friends is to sacrifice Sayaka by accepting that I sent her!

No no no no this can’t be happening

“You shouldn’t have been able to send her. Where was she if not inside Hope’s Peak?”

Maizono wrapped her arms around herself.

“Sayaka. Tell us the truth now.”

“You will not accept the truth.”

“What you said can’t be true!”

“Kirigiri-san,” Maizono said gently. “Do you remember the golden sword?”

Her second note: at the brink of her vision was an angel. Kirigiri could tell because of her halo. She remembered.

“It was an improvisation. I was sent to kill you as well to make you die in ultimate despair. And then I… couldn’t.”

to kill you

Whatever heat had remained in her body drained. It drained from her ribcage to her knees to a bloodlike pool around her feet. This was what it felt like to want to die, she realized with a sick knot in her stomach. This is when someone tells you they wanted to kill you and you only ask, why didn’t you?

“I guess I was never really good at this ‘despair’ thing. I mostly stayed to be by Izuru’s side and because… whenever I adopted a personality, I became them fully,” Maizono said. “But when I was around you, even if you didn’t see through me, your words had. I had to consider them as myself.” She stopped, clutching her hand to her chest. “… I simply… don’t know who I am to begin with.”

maizono

maizono maizono _maizono maizono maizono_

“Who are you?” Kirigiri asked, as if the answer had revealed itself within the past few seconds. They felt like years. The others stared. The world’s eyes were on her. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

“I can tell you who I am not,” said the girl in front of her, finally. The hairstyle, the clothes, even the look in her eyes; suddenly, they were parts that didn’t add up to a whole. Inhale. Exhale. “I am not Sayaka Maizono. I am nobody.”

inhale

“No…body…?”

exhale

“Makoto fulfilled his promise,” Komaru said. “He tried pulling you aside to his room of security cameras. The real Sayaka caught him and tried to stop it. He took a sword with a golden sheath and skewered her. The girl you see is an impostor. No name… no identity… no soul.”

“You’re wrong.” The words danced on the tip of her tongue. She could argue until her face was blue. She could argue until she drew her last breath.

Isn’t that what hope was? A person deceiving themselves to battle the overwhelming odds of reality?

Izuru Kamukura seemed to be holding back an objection as well, but on behalf of another person.

“You understand she died pointlessly. All of them did,” Komaru said. “Think back to the deaths of all your classmates, Kirigiri. Leon Kuwata loved music and he loved girls. You know how he died? Brutally murdered by the girls he objectified without a chance to ever play an instrument.”

“But that’s—”

“Of course Junko Enoshima died in despair. She loved it. As for her sister… have you seen anyone more unhappy? Her sibling died! All she had! She felt the most despair out of any of them, ironically enough!”

“You— you never seemed upset about your brother.”

“Fucking Makoto. He was nothing,” were all the words she allowed as far as sidetracking went. “But Kiyotaka Ishimaru… he was the least likely to give into despair. You know what his last words actually were? Do you, any of you?”

“No.”

“He said sorry to ‘aniki’ and said sorry that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his duty of watching over Sayaka. Then Hifumi Yamada and Mondo Oowada died pointlessly just like he did. Isn’t that just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard?”

“There’s no beauty in killing other people.”

“You never had an eye for art, Kirigiri.”

“There’s a difference between art and murder.”

“I think it takes someone… special. Your little friend Syo would agree,” Komaru said. Fukawa flinched before she could inquire what she meant. “Think, now. What reasons do the survivors have for not falling to despair? Byakuya had too much money to be bribed? Touko just had no strong feelings for anyone but herself? Yasuhiro was worth more dead than alive? This isn’t hope, Kirigiri. That’s overwhelming greed, isolation and self-persecution, and plain stupidity.”

“Asahina-san. Oogami-san.”

“Don’t make me laugh. Aoi couldn’t grasp the scale we were operating upon. Sakura refused to see the bigger picture. Ignorance on two counts. Intellect like yours, though, Kyouko…” she leaned forward onto her podium, running her fingernails along the edge.“I initially wanted the Impostor to kill you so you would taste the despair you deserved. If I wanted you dead, I could’ve had you delivered to me in pieces a million times by now. It’s simply that you’re the opposite of Yasuhiro: you’re worth much more to me alive than dead.”

“I’m not going to join you.”

Komaru strolled from her place in the courtroom to Kirigiri. Every instinct told her to run, to push her away— but there it was again. A growing fear paralyzed her-

like when you let Naegi die

\--like on her early missions. She noted grimly now that if she let fear take her in her normal work, she would’ve been dead. It truly was Komaru’s charity that kept her breathing.

“You don’t have much of a choice, Kyouko. I wanted you here to prove there’s no hope. It took nothing to get your group to lose it outside the Palace.” She ran her fingertips along Kirigiri’s cheek and shuddered. “But, if you want…”  **  
**

“If you’re threatening to kill me now, do it.”

“I’d never kill my big brother’s beloved little Kyouko-chan. I’d simply make you relive every moment of torment your classmates went through. I’ll make you hear Sayaka scream your name in terror while you snoozed away. You’ll beg me to kill you.” She paused, completely holding Kirigiri’s defiantly shut jaw. “Admit it, Kyouko. Admit there’s no ‘hope’. Admit it and I’ll let you go right now.”  **  
**

No hope.

She felt completely frigid— like she’d dived into an ocean of ice water. Pins pricked every part of her body.

Is this… what it feels like to fall to despair? she asked herself in the last conscious part of her mind.

Falling… falling…

I feel like I’m sinking lower and lower, and my instinct is to swim back up, but I can’t, Kirigiri thought. I’m not.

“You’re smart, Kyouko. You don’t want to die pointlessly, do you?”

“I— I don’t.”

“So even if you spit on Sayaka Maizono and accuse me of killing Makoto, you still have a lot to prove. Can you do it in this state? Can you do anything?”

Kirigiri couldn’t even breathe.

“I didn’t think so. So quit. Quit now.”

“I… concede,” she said.

“KIRIGIRI-SAN!”

“No no,” Komaru said, “she made the intelligent decision. There’s only so much pressure a person can take before it finally snaps them. Once they do snap, they can never go back.”

“A broken glass may not be repaired to its full quality, but that does not mean it can not be put back together.” Sakura crossed her arms. “It simply means it will not be the same. Different cracks appear in each individual’s glass as everyone has faced adversity. That is what unites humans.”  **  
**

“The only thing that unites humans is the fact that they’re going to die. There will be nothing. No happiness. No warmth. No love. Can you wrap your little mind around the concept of complete nothingness?” Komaru asked. “You can’t. So people in despair try to figure it out for themselves. And if they find creative ways to do it, kudos to them.”

“How could you say that?! You can’t just… not care about a person’s life!”

“There’s nothing in me that allows me to care or to redeem myself. I’m nothing. That’s what Makoto and I had in common. We were both better off dead.” Komaru, for a change, smiled. Innocent. Broken into so many shards it wasn’t even recognizable anymore. “So we promised to die together.”

“Ah, that’s right!”

Makoto Naegi’s voice had come back; she saw Alter Ego had switched to his face again. “Do we accept now that you killed me? Good job, imouto! Pretty funny, Komaru, that I went first. Now it’s your turn!”

Pretty funny, Komaru

Pretty funny

"Pretty funny, Kyouko," she had heard a dozen times after he said it.

_funny_

It was one of the last words that came to mind when death reared its head from the inky waters below.

“I think I mentioned the secret about this courtroom. It can only be exited when one person has died.”

Something about Alter Ego caught her eye. First it was Chihiro’s face and then it was all of their faces in a bastardization of some kind. It opened its mouth as if speaking but there came no sound.

“Died?”

Then there was a crack. A small one at first, the kind that amplified with weight. It inched over his virtual eyes.

“It’s you all or I. Hope or Despair. That’s the beauty of this game. Either I crush you or fulfill my promise to Makoto. Either way, I win.”

The screen became a web of sparks and breaks until the delicate glass shattered and rained down upon the courtroom. Glass— there was glass everywhere--on the floor, on the podiums, on Komaru’s form. The pieces fell off of her when she tried to laugh.

“Either you die or I die! Either way, I win!”

“That isn’t winning! That’s— that’s awful!” Asahina said.

“It isn’t awful, it’s all there is.” Komaru steadied herself, crossing her arms. Kirigiri briefly saw Junko Enoshima in her,then shook her head until the ghost had vanished. “Make sure to thank your little dating sim program for joining our discussion, by the way. I just wasn’t going to let it finish its other task.”

“Other task.”

“It thought it could unlock the doors and free you with no deaths! Isn’t that the silliest thing?”

The world vanished for an instant. It returned only at half the intensity, most of the light reflected off the destroyed screen throughout the room.

“In emergency power supply, the only things running are thaaaat light and my lock mechanisms! Did you really think you’re getting out of here so easily?” Komaru said. “Either your useless lives or mine! Don’t forget! Everyone’s a monster from someone else’s point of view, and the monsters always die!”

“You can’t just threaten to murder us or kill yourself because of a suicide pact you made with Makoto Naegi!”

“What does it matter? I am nobody as it stands.”

“Wh-who are you, anyway? Why would you do this?” Asahina asked. “Is it related to the … Naegi family killing?”

Death. Hope. Despair. Loss. She couldn’t find any evidence; her mind wouldn’t focus; she had both so much pain roaring through her and also felt nothing at all.

“I suppose you don’t understand. I am absolutely nobody,” Komaru said. “I did what I did because I’m just a hopeless, evil human being. Is that enough?”

“No person on this planet exists who is ‘nobody’. Just the act of your drawing breath means you are somebody.”

“Just because you’re alive doesn’t mean you feel like it,” the Impostor said. “No true voice… no true face… no true meaning to continue breathing but something I stole from another.”

“N-nobody is ‘evil’, e-either! N-no written character is evil for the s-sake of it! Writing is nothing but… extensions of our imaginations as people! Wh-why should what applies to characterization not apply to actual people?”

“I expected more of you plebeians. Can you not stop feeling sorry for yourselves long enough to hold an argument?”

“Despair isn’t an extravagant thing unless someone enjoys it, like Enoshima-san. It isn’t chosen.” Izuru put his hand to a scar of some kind on his head. It was long, purposeful, as if from an operation. “And as with our friend Kirigiri-san, it’s not a choice. She put up with quite a bit. There was only so much she could accept.”

“So just accept it!” came Komaru’s shout. “There’s nothing! Nothing but death in the end! Accept that someone’s going to leave with the other dead!”

“You’ve… you’ve got that wrong.”

“Wh-what?! Kirigiri?”

“I said it. Your assumption is nothing but the emotions you thought you didn’t have.”

“How dare you? Why don’t you just give up? You’re pathetic!”

“Izuru Kamukura said himself that often the voices of the dead speak louder than the voices of the living. And to this day, this is true. The true death only occurs when someone speaks your name for the last time,” she said. “I… can’t accept your worldview like this just because of someone I loved having passed. Others have lost so much more.”

Loved. That word felt so foreign. Did she ever say she loved anyone? Her father? Naegi? Maizono?

"Even if you’ve quit or if Kamukura has quit or if the Impostor has quit, there’s still a multitude of great beginnings. They’re waiting to be found."

“… Ha. Is that really what you think?”

“It is.”

The world stopped with Komaru gripping Kirigiri by her collar. They both knew the terms; if Komaru broke out in physical violence, nothing would stop all the rest of them from reciprocating. And what would that prove?

“Very well.” She released her grip. Kirigiri stumbled. “And what move are you going to make, detective girl?”

There needs to be some way out if Alter Ego is gone. Some other way, she thought. If we sentence Komaru Naegi to death, so many truths die as well.

“The terms of our game were beyond proving the death of Makoto Naegi, were they not?”

“They were.”

“Then we end this now,” Kirigiri said. “Togami-kun. Tell me about Ambassador Steichen’s murder.”

“Hmph. He was brutally killed on the eve of his visit here to negotiate a treaty between Japan and Novoselic.”

“Define the terms of the killing.”

“Beaten mercilessly and finally crucified with sharp objects. Everything but the battery matches the characteristics of Genocider Syo’s murders, implying there was more than one attacker involved, despite him working alone.”

“Where was his body found?”

“Within the Imperial Palace walls themselves. He was within the Chōwaden Reception Hall, where visiting dignitaries would arrive.”

Kirigiri put her hand to her chin. “There’s no way that any murderer could break through the security. It’s far more of a possibility that Ambassador Steichen cruised straight into Super High School Level Despair.”

“Wh-which would mean the regular citizens didn’t kill him for Despair, ‘right? Then we’re home free!”

“Adorable, but no,” Komaru said. “Would that mean the world became so bogged down in war that nobody knew who they were fighting for anymore, nor knew who the leaders were?” She stopped, licking her lips once. “Or if those leaders had been torn apart, strand by strand?”

Kirigiri didn’t look forward to figuring out what happened to the rest of Japan’s government.

“Besides, he was killed the night before his visit. Some despair-drunken citizens and Syo killed him before he even got close,” she said.

“That doesn’t explain the location of his body.”

“Ah, but you have no records on when his body was found, correct? It’s obvious Syo moved him there after he had the chance to break into the Imperial Palace.”

“Genocider Syo would have no possible reason to do that. There would be no access in but for members of Super High School Level Despair, also, as far as I can imagine.”

“Who suggested that Syo isn’t a Super High School Level Murderer?” She leaned forward, batting her eyelashes. No weight behind the action. “These ranks sure were unorganized ‘cause of Makoto. He could’ve been in there somewhere!”

“Is Kamukura familiar with—”

“I refuse to comment.”

“Good boy,” Komaru said.

“But there came no reports of similar murders after our game of mutual killing began.”

“Who cares? Maybe he killed himself.”

Kirigiri shook her head. “I find that difficult to believe. The killings stop after we are locked in the school, not after Makoto Naegi’s death. There would be no reason to turn to suicide. Perhaps he stopped murdering because he was physically unable to rather than unwilling to.”

“Eh? You— you really think that Syo was one of you?!”

“That makes it perfectly plausible for Genocider Syo to murder Steichen alone.”

“Yes? And if he was one of you, he’d still have no access to the Imperial Palace!”

“I’ll cut that claim apart.” Kirigiri looked at the little evidence they had gathered. The autopsy report had somehow survived. “The coroner found, of all things, rope burns around the victim’s mouth. No rope was found with him. That implies he only needed to stay silent long enough for the murderer’s pleasure, but not long enough to restrain any screams from the crucifixion.”

“You’re suggesting that Syo snuck him into the palace,” Togami said.

“Another odd thing for him to have is a sole bite on the nape of his neck. That’s an odd mark to have uniquely amongst the others, correct?”

“But—”

“Still, what ultimately killed him was the crucifixion. The decimation of his body happened posthumously, or that would have been the cause of death. He was found, examined, then torn apart for what I can only describe as ‘the fun of it’,” Kirigiri said. “Ultimately, he was not allowed to make noise, treated roughly, bitten once— yet apparently the destruction of his corpse didn’t harm his clothing, suggesting it was off.”

“Are you suggesting… all of his injuries leading up to his death are nothing but the results of kinky sex play?”

“That is what I am suggesting.”

At which point, Fukawa fainted. They watched her. She didn’t seem to get back up. **  
**

“Regardless… that was inevitably the fate of the Ambassador. It was enough to show that the public didn’t want him dead nor the wars to continue, but it was an act by just one unusual murderer. I hope that was enough as far as a ‘world-class detective’.”

At which point, she looked Komaru in the eye. Komaru growled like she had no idea how people expressed anger, despite her outbursts as Monobear.

“You bitch.”

She hadn’t meant to let her triumph get the better of her, but she couldn’t help herself from thinking the word ‘checkmate’.  **  
**

“There is nothing here but a conclusion.” The Impostor— she almost forgot she was (he was? they were?) present. She shifted her weight uncomfortably at the living ghost in front of her. “That was to bring an end to the wars. There’s nothing on the start of them.”

“To what made the world despair,” Komaru said. “There’s nothing, is there? Nothing of the outside world I haven’t spit on.”

“Someone would have come. If the world was watching this, we wouldn’t be alone with your two members of Despair.”

“How do you know there is a ‘someone’? What if I was so calm about losing the power because there were so few left to watch? What if nuclear weapons became conventional methods of war?” Komaru rested her chin in her hands, giving just enough time to plant the image of the fallout in their minds. “What if millions of people fell in a great world holocaust, and the last thing that went through so many’s collective mind was, ‘what for?’”  **  
**

“You wouldn’t have.”

“I’m just saying, Kyouko-tan. Once you break out the very very big bad means of war, do you think some little ambassador would have solved shit anyway?” she said. “Would our simulated Mukuro have also known how pointless it feels to be a soldier and not be able to stand up to anything like that?”

“She wasn’t just a soldier! She was someone’s friend and- and a sister!”

“Aoi, Aoi, Aoi… She was just a tool. Makoto was a tool. I guess me and Junko had a lot in common.”  **  
**

“I thought you ruled together.”

“Oh, they loved Makoto. They loved Makoto! It was all about Makoto!” Her nails dug into the podium. Kirigiri could only imagine what would happen if that was her skin. “Why do you think so many of them went when he got captured?! They all thought him dead already!”

“And you took it upon yourself to make it so their deaths were not meaningless?”

“They were meaningless anyway!”

Izuru and the Impostor even at this point had begun to inch further from the remaining member of the Naegi family, who threw her head back. She would have laughed. Maybe she would have screamed, but she was incapable. Komaru finally leveled herself and said it.

“Izuru. You’ve fulfilled your purpose, haven’t you?”

“… Yes.”

“No!” the Impostor leaned in, capturing Maizono’s terror in their eyes. “NOBODY HAS—”

“Then drink.”

“— NOBODY IS SOMEONE YOU CAN THROW AWAY!”

“I…” Izuru clenched his fist into a tight ball, the cork in the bottle peeking from between his knuckles.

Loyalty. He had loyalty, Kirigiri figured. He would obey who he was most loyal to.

“I will.”

“Izuru—”

“Haruka.” Unfamiliar. Gender ambiguous. The Impostor’s real name. “The three of us are nothing in different senses of the word. You have ways to turn back. I don’t.”

“Please listen to what Kirigiri-san is saying! It’s all about new opportunities! It’s all about h—”

“Drink the poison.”

“Yes.” His glance met the Impostor's, met the soul behind what she thought were Maizono’s eyes. “I will.”

“D-don’t tell me I can use my talent for something else! You can use your talent too!”

“Haruka, you know what I did.” The pop of a cork. “I started the Most—”  **  
**

“DRINK IT!”

The voice stopped, immediately replaced by the sounds of a substance being downed. Kamukura didn’t even drink the poison so much as inhale it, force it down his throat. And the next sound that came was the smack of skin on skin and a bottle shattering on the ground. There; the Impostor--Haruka--was there by his side. They were screaming something that Kirigiri couldn't decipher.  **  
**

Kirigiri did notice that, as the Impostor was by Izuru’s side, he was in their arms during his last moments.

“You…” Their voice sounded forced, as if their throat had also closed from the poison. “You.”

“Yeah, me! Komaru-chan!” The megaphone appeared from thin air, so far as Kirigiri could tell; maybe she had it the whole time and she had been too disoriented to notice. “ARE YOU HURT BY HIS DEATH, IMPOSTOR? Is your soul damaged when you didn’t HAVE ONE TO BEGIN WITH?”

God, that blasted right in the Impostor’s ears and her head was ringing. They wouldn’t let Kamukura’s body go to cover their own ears. It must have been getting cold.

“He was ALL you had left, wasn’t he?”

“H-he…”

beep

“He made a sacrifice. Th-that’s why he died..”

“Yeah?” Komaru kicked Izuru out of their hands. “Why’s it that when you live for someone, you’re pathetic, but when you die for someone, you’re a hero?”

beep

“It wasn’t for me. If he wanted to appeal to me, he would have stayed,” the Impostor said. “It was for all of us to escape.”

It clicked in Kirigiri’s mind. “That’s right. This place only allows us exit when at least one of us has died.”

beep

“But then there oughta not be that creepy noise, ‘right?”

“Oh, I said there’s no escape switch on me,” Komaru said, drawing out every word. “I never said there was no manual override switch for the execution itself.”

“Wh-what?!”

beep

She giggled, the smallest of the glass shards falling from her like snowflakes. “Yep! All your individual executions are buried with Makoto, so Komaru-chan loaded the Imperial Palace underground with explosives! Aah… N-none of you dipshits even guessed that this stupid megaphone was just the switch in disguise!”

A scream— no, two, but she could place neither. One of them demanded they flee. “N-now I die the same way as Makoto… oh, how pathetic that is!” came Komaru’s cry laced with her own idea of joy. But the beeping was incessant.

beep

She saw them break free from the podiums. She saw the deceased’s portraits overturn and break in the chaos, the mingling of glass with glass and heard the crunch of it under their feet. Her observations stopped as the weight hit her. Admittedly it was light, but aimed well enough to knock her off her feet. All one-hundred pounds of despair and instability pinned her just as Sakura picked up Izuru and the unconscious Fukawa before fleeing at the others’ heels.

The fighter knew the way to safety; Kirigiri felt confident just watching her go. A distant part of her mind thought they were in good hands. She already discounted herself from the group. Kirigiri didn’t know if she would have gone even if Komaru wasn’t there.

“You sure do have a knack for escaping death, Kyouko!” came her voice over the mess of it all. “Weren’t you a suspect for both trials? Oh, oh, and didn’t you somehow escape Makoto and Haruka? Huh?”

“It wasn’t me as a Super High School Level Detective like Naegi thought. It was me as a person. All of us— people. Imagine that.”

The beeping increased to a steadier pace. “It doesn’t matter! This is the end of the line for you and me, Kyouko-chan and Komaru-chan!”

“That doesn’t matter if I get what I was looking for.”

“And what were y—”

Komaru’s head made a lovely crack against the ground as Kirigiri flipped her from being pinned to doing the pinning. The girl's face under her gloved hand, there wasn’t a lot of talking to be done now.

“Answers.”

“Mmph—”

“The ‘incident’. It wasn’t planned like Celes 'desciphered' when investigating,” she said. “Even if you were ‘disappointed’ to see Makoto, you thought he was a disappointment to begin with.”

beep

Kirigiri didn’t give time to answer. “And is that the answer behind your obsession? What sent you spinning wildly out of control? Or was you and your brother’s mutual obsession with people being carved down to nothing because you looked inside yourselves and saw the same?”

“G-good. Ve-very good.”

beepbeepbeep

No time left now. She almost could’ve made it, she knew it. When she looked down at Komaru, there was a hint of resemblance.

“She always loved you,” the Impostor had said. At the end of it all, Kirigiri remembered. The ‘she’ wasn’t herself. The thought warmed her.

But you just wouldn’t allow it, she thought, would you father? And that’s where Naegi came in?

Still, she mourned. But it was okay. Okay. So much truth, the real truth, had come to light. Her only failing was letting Komaru die here. Then again, she didn’t know if the girl had planned to play by the rules and only kill herself to begin with.

“Thank you for the chance, Sayaka,” she whispered to herself. “…I love you too. Thank you so, so much.”

The beeping melded into one solid noise and then stopped all at once and broke into a roar that filled her eardrums more than a hundred of the megaphones ever could. She saw a hint of regret in Komaru, like Makoto wasn’t the only sibling who tasted clarity at the thirteenth hour. But Kirigiri mostly saw her— her angel and her halo.

Then, there was nothing.


End file.
